[Pokémon] [SWC] Return to Suffering

Return to Suffering​

The elderly man set two cups of tea on the table and sat on his armchair across the young girl, who was watching the local news network on the TV. Her little squirtle played with a squeaky toy on the floor by her side, baby-blue soap-scrubbed skin glistening where sunlight fell. There was some report about a festival being held in Alola, and the girl's eyes were fixated with fascination on the live recordings of the festivities, especially the visitation of an island guardian. Some pokemon he would never encounter in his life. Not that he minded; his days were long over.

Commercials broke and the elderly man cleared his throat and drew a long thoughtful sip.

"So you say you want to be a master pokemon trainer one day?"

The girl politely nodded. She held the cup of tea above her lap nervously. Fresh-faced, and judging by the looks of her pokemon, he could probably count the number of days she had spent as a trainer with one hand.

"I heard around town that you knew a lot about pokemon. And you were quite famous."

"You could say that, I guess," the old man chuckled. "I used to be famous. But that was a long time ago and nothing that wouldn't bore you, missy." He waved a hand in the air.

Leaning back, arms crossed and elbows propped on the armrests, he asked her the same question he asked every bright-eyed child whose head was filled with big dreams.

"So, what exactly do you want to learn?"

"....I beg your pardon?"

The girl looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights, eyes unblinking for a moment. He had seen this expression countless times, as the question hit like some sort of truck and rendered these kids stunned and bewildered, probably expecting some words of wisdom to pour out from his apparently golden mouth. Instead they got a simple question, that seemed to result in an existential crisis of some sort.

"Why are you staring at me like stunned magikarps waiting for enlightenment to fall from the sky?"

He sighed inwardly. "Do you really know what you are in for?"

"Um... I guess so? I did my research before I received my squirtle from the professor, who downloaded an application on my iDex. But I'm sure there are many things I don't know yet..." she replied hesitantly.

Research. Of course. Watching all those PokéTube videos of tournament battles between elite trainers, how-to guides uploaded by washed-out trainers trying to be an online celebrity, idols and coordinators giving basic grooming tutorials like your daily Channel Five nine o'clock PokéMart advertisements, and what have you not. Browsing through articles and forum threads written by sketchy people who more often than not spend their free time using the free wifi of Pokémon Centers, coming up with excuses of procrastination to hide their fear of entering the Rock Tunnel alone. Kids these days... And what they define as 'research'.

"You really haven't a faintest clue how lucky you are, aren't you?" Was she lucky that he met her? Maybe, but he didn't see himself that way. It was probably misfortune that the both of them had to cross paths like this.

"You youngsters have it easy nowadays. All the knowledge in the world that you could possibly have is right at your fingertips. You know how to capture a pokemon, you know which city has the best deals, and you know how to travel across regions. I bet you don't even bother to read those wooden signposts – I'm talking about those made of rotting wood with faded text that states at the top "Trainer Tips" – anymore when your iDex tells you everything you need to know. There's really nothing you can't do or learn."

"Back in my day, we didn't have the Internet to teach us things. We didn't have slim plasma TVs or any of those fancy gizmos you guys get before your tenth birthday. All we had was the Teachy TV; slow, hideously boxy and really an inconvenience to travel with. (It's a bit hypocritical of me to say that but my point still stands.) We had to learn how to be a trainer through sheer experience. In a few years' time, posterity would probably start using their iDexes to capture pokemon instead of pokéballs."

"We didn't have clear paths; we had to travel through the beaten tracks of tall grass to get to where we wanted to be. Potions were such a luxury that most of the time I remembered running back to the nearest Pokemon Center, which was much smaller than what you see now, mind you, and much more crowded with people who hadn't had a shower for days after hiking through the wilderness. But now you kids have shiny bikes with shiny wheels! And expensive shoes that can last a thousand triathlons. Back in my day, buying ten bottles of Zinc supplements at one go was unheard of! And feeding your pokemon a dozen Rare Candies at once was sure to give it diabetes. Now trainers in Unova are apparently feeding their pokemon feathers to make them faster and stronger in battle. People are going around fighting only audinos. 'Super Training', they call it."

"Back then, we were already excited to see a pile of purple gunk in a dilapidated mansion on a volcanic island, much less the mythical monstrosity residing in Cerulean Cave. You all don't even bat an eyelid unless a pokemon has a sheen that glitters like gold. It has to have three heads and a Dark typing. It has to look like an ice cream cone or a candle. It has to be a mechanical lion, a crescent-shaped phantom bat, or a stag with multiple antlers. Your red-capped idol, the celebutante of the millennials, saw the legendary rainbow phoenix, but ain't nobody in this corner of Kanto seen anything larger than a pidgey spread its wings across Viridian. Back then, the mafia tried to abduct pikachus. Now, these rodents are all over the world, becoming some icon with a cult following. Arceus knows how."

The old man paused, taking a sip of that warm tea to keep his engines going. The young girl sat there, still stunned and stricken as ever. The truth tended to have such an effect.

"Eventually, you'll leave this sorry excuse of a region for Hoenn. Or Alola. Wherever you trainers think is cool and appropriate to carve a big name out of yourselves. And maybe one day, one of you, perhaps you, might discover another species of pokemon – probably comes from the moon and looks like a deformed rabbit – to add on to the encyclopedia of seven hundred and something monsters we already have. I lost count after the 152nd pokemon, I have to be honest with you."

"If you were expecting some grand moment of truth from me, I hate to break it to you but that's it from me. That's all I can give you – what simply is. I don't have any secrets, no techniques of how to stand in the middle of the road and summon Moltres, or any of that 'tying a slowpoke tail to the end of a rod to catch a rare water pokemon' nonsense. I can't tell you whether digletts have feet or dodrios have tripled dreams. There is no answer to life and the mysteries of the universe; none of that preachy "if life throws you nomel berries" sugarcoated babble that those books gush on about. You know a lot more than this old chap here. You have yet to live your life. As it is, you are in constant motion with the world, and you have yet to reach the point where you have to stop, and be left behind as the world keeps going and going."

He slowly drew himself to stand on both feet, both teacups now empty and dry. He stood at the doorway, seeing the young girl with her squirtle off, who courteously bid him farewell and thanked him for his time. Maybe he had sparked something in her, he would never know. Maybe something he had said would eventually set something else in motion. Maybe someday, when her hair was silver and the ribbons on her blastoise no longer gleamed, she would remember him. It was a cycle after all, looking back and moving forward. The past and the future in a Möbius strip.​