Puck Faintball

Albert Einstein once said that "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Sorry, Albie. While you may be an unprecedented genius in all things mathy and physicky, your fortune-telling skills are dreadfully poor. Let me tell you what World War IV will be fought with.

Paintball.

Let me explain. I went paintballing for the first time today, and I have seen the future, and the future lies with air guns and colourful plastic pellets. More importantly though, it lies with those who are pulling the trigger.

I believe this is the future because today, I witnessed the soldiers of the future directing strategies, plotting advances, and belting out orders to their underlings on a dark, slippery, and treacherous battlefield. Their eyes are cold and unfeeling as they stare out from under their foggy visors, searching for the next victim. Will it be the lanky teenager dressed in red? Perhaps the middle-aged fat man? Maybe the tall Asian loudmouth? Hmm...

Though they were not tall enough to climb the stairs they forced us lowly infantry to attack, be warned that these so-called "children" will be the ones to lead us to glory-or-death in the wars to come. Just because they haven't physically grown a pair yet doesn't mean they haven't psychologically grown a pair.

They may be cunning minds, but they are not merciful. When you run, they will hunt you. When you trip and fall, they will be cruel to you. When you surrender, they will be deaf to you. Indeed, once you are at their mercy, they will laugh mirthlessly, as their only response to any of your pathetic pleas of resignation and forgiveness is a few sharp rounds to the head. Like, the parts right underneath the mask. The parts that really, really hurt.

But when they are not marshaling their troops, they are in fact being marshaled by their even more ruthless parents. For these children, the love is tough and the message is unwavering:

"DON'T SHOOT AT WHAT YOU CAN'T SEE. IT'S NOT SCIENCE YOU LITTLE JERK!"

"HOW DID YOU SPEND SO MUCH AMMO IN ONE ROUND. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE THESE PELLETS ARE?"

"HEY, LISTEN TO ME. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? *points gun at son* WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME?!"

and other encouragements of this vein.

Some may consider this "extremely overreacting", "irresponsible parenting", or perhaps even "blatant child abuse", but it will not matter. In 20 years, after these kids have conquered the human race and reshaped our societies, it will be considered normal and correct, along with other things such as death metal, Mountain Dew, and skateboarding over your mother's grave.

And to fight this destiny is laughable, because we, the weak, have nothing to protect ourselves. We will be armed with guns yes, but guns that jam, that don't fire accurately when not jammed, and that spill all the ammo when not fired.

As you unjam your gun for the 13th time today, you look towards the enemy, and see that they have nothing less than sniper rifles and automatics, equipped with flashlights and laser pointers. You fire towards these foes, only to hear someone giggle and run away as your Achilles tendon is decimated by a pellet. And when you finally reach where the enemies have holed up for after all this time, you will realize that you have run out of compressed gas.

Then you will be shot in the penis repeatedly by a vulgar-mouthed 10-year old hopped up on chocolate and Red Bull.

As the match supervisor calls time, and everyone walks away from the field, you lie down in the sand and weep softly as you cradle your shattered genitals, deciding finally that everything you heard about God being fair and gracious were all dirty filthy lies.



You also decide that, really, laser-tag is probably more fun than paintball.