By Justin Mynheir
Friends and fans knew him as Nole the Mole. The internet knew him as a viral failure.
Last year, he dueled Herbert the Hammer at the Twenty-Second Whack-a-Mole International Championship for the title of Mallet Master. Herbert’s score reached previously unseen levels, but Nole knew he could’ve beaten him—had he not ignored a “wet floor” sign, slipped, and sprained his mallet hand catching his fall.
Here at the Twenty-Third Internationals, he didn’t have room to fail again.
Herbert, as the reigning champ, swung first. The scoreboard above the stadium blinked the hefty score of 133 in red lights. Nole frowned as his adversary left the stage smirking confidently. Herbert winked in his direction.
Nole massaged his right wrist through the wrapped athletic tape and adjusted his fuzzy orange headband. Underneath the blinding white lights of the domed arena, he strode to the stage. The fifty thousand spectators roared. Nole smoothed down his mustache as sports drink bottles crashed against the walls of netting surrounding the central arcade game.
“Nine holes. Regulation size,” he mused.
Nole ascended the steps and stopped a few feet from the machine. He glanced at his right hand again, the wrist nearly useless after the tragic accident that crippled his career and made YouTube history in views.
“When the mole is forced into its hole by the impact of the mallet, does it hide?” His mentor, Sensei Gary of the San Francisco Taekwondo Studio/Flower Shop, always asked when he was tempted to quit. “No. The mole pops back up,” he’d continue, raising his hands towards the sky. “The mole stares down the one who smashes it and prepares itself to withstand or dodge another blow. Be the mole. Rise up again.”
“Gary always knew what to say,” Nole whispered, “and his knowledge of tulips was superb.”
He reached for the mallet. The crowd screamed. He took up the black rubber hammer in his left hand.
The buzzer rang.
The first brown rodent popped from the middle-right hole. Nole smashed it back.
As each furry lump of brown appeared, down came his mallet. One point, two—he racked them up as if the moles rose just for him to slam them back into the beeping, chrome-plated machine. Herbert the Hammer had to be frowning.
The thought threw him off. He missed a mole. The rubber mallet met the border of an empty hole and bounced back.
The machine waited, teasing him. Sweat soaked into his headband. Nole had 50 points so far out of the 135 possible by normal means. If he missed one more mole, he and Herbert would tie. Then his last resort would be the King Mole. Nole ran the fingers of his useless hand through his hair. The mole wearing a gold crown would pop up and plunge back down four times faster than the others. The King Mole came up twice, and the five points for hitting the target could only be risked in the direst of need. Three previous challengers for Mallet Master had hinged their victory on hitting it. None had succeeded.
Two moles rose in near unison, a death sentence. Nole hit the first and slammed down as the second withdrew. He missed by such a narrow margin that tears crested his eyelids. Nole the Mole and Herbert the Hammer were tied. His future lay atop the furry head of the King Mole.
Nole drew in all of the anger built up from excruciating training. He smashed the coming moles while picturing Sensei Gary crossing his arms, glaring, expecting failure. With this black mallet, Nole had whacked moles at arcades to the envious glares of toddlers, he’d whacked punching bags to the disturbed glances of Taekwondo students, he’d whacked trees alone in a forest for three days before a rescue team found him. That one ran in the national news cycle for a week.
The past year tried to whack him, but he whacked back.
The King Mole had not yet appeared when Nole reached 130 points. The next three moles came up in succession. Nole hit the first, then the second. No, his mallet met the third and missed the second entirely. He stood underneath the oppressive stadium lights, 132 points and only the King Mole left. His hope fell through his hands like sand. Herbert was ahead.
The King Mole always did two things in Internationals: it came up and dropped down in 0.5 seconds, and two seconds later, it reappeared in an adjacent hole. Nole watched the board, waiting. The crowd went silent. His legs shook, sweat drenched his headband, and the slimy eyes of Herbert the Hammer watched him. Nole couldn’t let him win again.
The machine released a high-pitched laugh, and the King Mole ascended. Nole smiled and let the mole hide again without even trying. The crowd inhaled sharply like a single spectator. It had popped out of the top left corner on the three-by-three board, leaving only the choice of upper middle or left middle.
Nole slammed down without waiting, without thinking. The intuition of his trained left arm guided his mallet.
The black rubber met something solid. The Whack-a-Mole machine squeaked. He withdrew the mallet from the left middle hole, and the King Mole sunk down into the shadows of the machine.
Nole raised his mallet to the scoreboard reading 137 points. Cheers exploded from the crowd. Nole the Mole was the new Mallet Master. Sensei Gary waved a tulip over the crowd. Nole pointed a thumbs-up at him.
Cameras flashed, and Herbert the Hammer sobbed in the front row. Nole tossed his mallet in the air and leapt off the stage. He hit the ground, and his ankle bent with a flash of pain. He collapsed to the Astroturf with an embarrassingly high-pitched scream.
Nole lay where he fell and gave another thumbs-up.
“Good game.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’m always up for some good absurdist humour.
Thank you! I try.
Taekwondo Studio and Flower Shop. That’s a unique combination.
The play-by-play and the description on this story are top notch. Loved it.
Hilarious! Spot-on humor and amusing concept. Really loved the tension and the ending – and the idea of a Taekwondo Studio/Flower Shop!