Pokemon is love. Pokemon is life.

I was about nine or ten. My family lived out in the country, about ten miles away from the nearest town. We had eight acres of land where I could do pretty much anything I wanted, and beyond that was miles of woods not owned by anyone in particular. When it came time to put down the Gameboy, usually when my mother made me, this was my playground.

I was a chubby kid. I wore cargo shorts, tennis shoes, a t-shirt that was a little too tight, and large glasses, round like Harry Potter. I would go about exploring the barn, or chicken coup. I would play a top the root cellar. The top was rounded, and made a small hill in the middle of the yard; I swear to you it look like pride rock. Rolling down it was the best.

Near the base of that hill was our propane tank, and next to that was a very old walnut tree. As I rolled down the hill once a walnut caught me right on the floating rib. It hurt a bit, but I didn’t cry. Actually, I looked at the walnut, and I realized it was pretty much the right size as a pokeball when it was in it’s small form, like when Ash would keep them on his belt.

“Well, shit,” I said under my breath, because the windows were open, and my mom was in the kitchen.

If I can’t play Pokemon inside, I can totally play it outside. So my own Pokemon adventure began.

I chose Charmander as my starter, because Charizard is clearly the coolest. If you didn’t know why, you clearly weren’t cool enough. My sister liked Squirtle, but she’s a girl, and couldn’t understand it was called “Game*boy*” for a reason. My parents always took her side.

Anyway, I made my way out into the woods. I figured I could find a Weedle or something, and then I could evolve him into an awesome Beedrill. Or maybe I would get lucky and find a Pikachu, but I never counted on that. After that I figured, since I was in Kansas, I’d hit one of the many prairies around. They be good for all the Pidgeys and Rattatas I could ever need. I might also be able to find a Nidoran. Hopefully female, I always liked Nidoqueen better, Nidoking was too spikey for my taste. Also, not many people knew this, but you could find a Mankey, if you knew where to look. Then I could make my way to the creek down by were the our dead end road hit the main road. There’s probably like a couple hundred million Magikarp in there.

I had a friend who never wanted to take the time to train Magikarp. He said it took to long, it wasn’t worth it. He liked Golem. We used the link cables to battle a couple of times. I always made sure to use Gyarados against his Golem. It never took more than two moves to beat him. One time he tried using his own Gyarados against me, he traded for it of course. By that time I had Zapdos, and had already beaten the Elite Four and Blue. After that he said he was just going to play on his own, and link battles were stupid anyway. Yeah, right.

It took a couple of days to procure my perfect team. It would’ve taken less time, but my mother would always make me come in when the light above the garage came on. It was suppose to come on in the dark, but it never seemed that dark to me. She would scream and scream my name. Her voice always seemed to carry across the whole Great Plains. What a nag.

Anyway, it didn’t take long to train my team. I was pretty good at this; Chamander evolved in like five minutes. I got through the gym battles pretty easy. 8 acres, 8 gyms it made perfect sense. I was ready to make my way down Victory road, when another trainer wanted to battle. It was just some random dude. I hadn’t seen him, he must have been hiding behind a tree. He was a formidable opponent, I could tell. He played mind games, psychological warfare. He called me fat. I told him to shut up. I yelled it; I was far enough away from the house my parents wouldn’t hear.

He was an older dude, probably a gentlemen. That meant fire types. That was fine, I had my Gyarados if anything went wrong. He sent out a Ponyta first. I chose Pidgot. He was up first, because I was going to need to fly to New Mexico. That’s where the Indigo Plateau was. I don’t remember why. Pridgot went down easy, and that kind ticked me off so next came Charizard. He was about level 4 zillion at this point. Levels don’t max out at 100 in real life.

Fire versus fire wasn’t the best choice strategically, but I always use Charizard when I’m mad, and I didn’t want to send out Gyarados yet. We took a few hits, but Charizard beat Ponyta. And then the guy sent out a Arcanine. I had only ever faced Growlithe at this point, I was excited. Then Arcanine threw a fire ball about the size of Mt. Everest. I had to jump out of the way myself.

Charizard went down in one shot. From a fire attack, I couldn’t believe it, but I wasn’t worried yet. I just smiled my coolest cool guy smile. You know, with my head tilted down, not even looking at the opponent. I threw the Pokeball. Gyarados came forth. If you’re not a Pokemon trainer, I can’t explain the brilliance of a fully trained, strong Gyarados emerging from his red and white home. The scales glint in the sun, his roar is so loud they probably heard it in Topeka. It’s simply awe inspiring. The guy flinched a bit. He tried to cover it, but I saw it.

I wasn’t playing around anymore. Gyarados used hydro pump. The Arcanine took it head on! It was like somebody forgot to tell this thing about type weaknesses. The two began to duke it out. Volley after volley went back and forth until they were both on their last legs. I could hear the low health warning ringing in my ears. However, I had one more trick up my sleeve. Gyarados used Surf. HMs are the best. A tidal wave rose up from… somewhere. Arcanine tried to resist, but the water kept rushing at him. Finally his strength gave out, and he and his trainer were washed away, like four miles down the road.

I took a deep breath. I returned Gyarados back into his pokeball to rest. It was the most intense non-pixelated battle I had ever fought. Sweat beaded down my brow from the exertion of the battle, though it was a hot August day. I stood there in the field, and looked around. My pocket bulged from the six walnuts I had stuffed into my khaki shorts. I decided right then that even when I become a grown up this would still be awesome. I didn’t care if people never thought I was cool, or if it was only for kids. I resolved to never stop loving Pokemon. And I never have.