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THE TRUE STORY OF Pa Q, Part One of Nine


I. Four difficulties


I keep meaning to write the true story of Pa Q. I am not one of those who seeks glory by writing. An immortal e-pen requires the deeds of an immortal player. But in the end I always return to the idea of writing the story of Pa Q, who was nobody.






There are four difficulties in writing a story such as this.




First. What kind of story is it that I am giving birth to here?

There are many types of biography. Unfortunately none of them suit my purpose.

"Official biography"? This is obviously not a story to be included with those about eminent players carrying out authentically epic deeds.

"Autobiography"? But I am obviously not Pa Q.

And it cannot be a "legend" because Pa Q was no legendary figure.

Maybe it is a "sketch"? But then you might justifiably counter that there is no "complete account" of Pa Q to compare it to. Indeed, it has probably not been clear thus far that there ever was a player named Pa Q.


So I will just stick with "true story".







Another difficulty is I don't really know what Pa Q's surname was. It is clear that he had a difficult e-life, as we all do to some extent. One day long ago, it is said that he seemed to be named Quinn, like me. But the next day there was some confusion about the matter.

It all went back to the day many cycles ago when my older brother was appointed as the Young Socialist Mascot at our clan's revolutionary car washing commune over in the Land of Peas. Pa Q, who had apparently just drunk two bottles of revolutionary spirits, began to prance about declaring how this reflected credit on him too, since he belonged to a Quinnish clan. This led to some bystanders becoming slightly in awe of Pa Q.

But the next day the local Anarcho-Russo-Ukrainian Party Whip summoned Pa Q to our Granma's house and she proceeded to berate him:

"Pa Q, you miserable cur! Did you say I belonged to the same clan as you? How dare you talk such nonsense! How could we be relatives? Is your surname Quinn?"



Pa Q said nothing and was backing away, when Granma, who was a tough one, darted forward and gave him a short, sharp slap on the face.

He made no attempt to defend himself and walked back into the street enduring a steady stream of abuse from the Party Whip, who was a verbose multi-cultural Georgian.




Everyone who heard about it said Pa Q was a nut-bag to ask for a beating like that. After that incident no further mention was made of Pa Q's ancestry. So I still have no idea what his surname really was.







The third difficulty is that I don't know how Pa Q referred to himself personally either, nor how he wrote his name. Nor how he saw himself and how he told his own truth.

During his lifetime people called him Pa Queue or sometimes Packie, but after his death not a soul ever mentioned him again. He was obviously not one of those, like the immortal teacher-leader of the SFP Osmany Ramon or the eternal sentinel of the SFP IRC, Zhao Ji, whose names are recorded for all time in the democratic peoples' glorious wikis and after whom specialized chat forums are named.

If there is any question of preserving his name, this little essay will be the first attempt. I have never given the question much thought, honestly. I did ask my brother Aniken about it during one of our rare encounters, but even such a learned comrade as my brother was baffled by it.



Also, I did finally ask one of my whale-like tech weenie friends from one of the Big Parties to examine the eRep legal documents recording Pa Q's case. But after eight months he sent me a message saying that there was no name anything like "Pa Q" in the archives in Bucharest.

Although uncertain if that was truth or if my friend had simply done nothing, at that point I could think of nothing else to do to find out how this character referred to himself. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, but what else can I do?








The fourth and final difficulty is Pa Q's place of origin: where (and when) did all of this happen?


But alas, that is also uncertain. Although we know he e-lived for the most part in the borderlands of Roosterland, well beyond Slavolakdakkia, deep inside the Land of the Peas, he travelled a good bit and often stayed in other places. So it would be wrong to call him a "Russian" or something like that. It would, in fact, amount to a complete distortion of history.




The only thing that consoles me is the fact that it is absolutely correct that players called him "Pa". This is definitely not the result of false analogy, and will withstand the test of scholarly e-criticism.


As for the other problems I have outlined in this introductory material, I can only hope that those players with a passion for history and research may be able in future to throw new light on them. I am afraid, however, that by that time my "True Story of Pa Q" will have long since passed into e-oblivion.










XOXOXOXOX,
PQ
Friend me here!




Join the Freedom Writers, the SFP Writer's Guild.







This is intended to be just part one of a nine-part story. Wish me luck!
And here is: Part 2!



If you have had a Pa Q sighting or know anything about him, please make a note of it in the handy comments section below.