The van was all packed up, and we were preparing to drive all of our computers back home after my humiliating LAN party match against Stewie the Frosh. Suddenly one of his frat buddies, driving by on a motorcycle, roared up next to us. "You guys still in town?" he asked. We nodded. I refused to make eye-contact after my whuppin two nights before.

"You heard Stewie's in the hospital?" he asked. Our looks of surprise were all the answer he needed. "Yeah, last night we made a catapult out of some 2x4s and a barber's chair and some ce-ment blocks, you know, usual stuff. We call it the graduation Frat-a-pult. F--in' sent Stewie through the roof of the library. They found him with a bottle of tequila in his hand and half of the 900s up his ass."

Much as I hated Stewie, and his terrible taunt of "You can't hit nothin'," it's a terrible thing to hear of a gamer who's hurt. We decided to stop by and wish him well.

The hospital was grey and reeked of clenser. The nurses were bored -- the ward was empty but for Stewie, who we found alone in his room, lit by a single skylight in the ceiling. Stewie was in traction. I mean it -- he was in bad shape. Two black eyes, a tube in his nose, his legs in casts from hip to toe, one arm encased in plaster and hanging from the ceiling, his hair completely covered in bandages... it woulda been horrible, except Stewie was in good spirits. "WHAT UP BOOYY-ZZ!" he called as we came in.

We said we were sorry to hear what happened. He said he was sorry we missed it. Then he spotted me and suddenly his attitude changed. "Oh, oh I see why you're here. You think jes' cuz' I'm in traction you're gonna kick my ass, hunh? Well nuh-unnh! You're goin' DOooOWN!" with each word his metal bed rattled.

"Dude, I'm not here to kick your ass. I'm just here to make sure you're doin' okay," I said, trying to sound reassuring.

Stewie the Frosh, bound in plaster and sucking a tube of oxygen, would have none of it. "Oh no bitches, I still gotz the skillz. Bring it!" he paused to spit out some blood and fragments of what appeared to be teeth. "BRinG IT!"

"Dude, chill, you'll hurt something," I cooed.

He slammed his one free arm onto the nurse button. "MORPHINE!" he shouted into the speaker. Then he shook his IV stand at me. "You can't hit NOTHIN'!" he yelled. Well, that was too much. Too much. I snapped.

"Oh YEAH?" I yelled, as my friends shot me withering glances. "Well ... well ... BRING IT ON, CRIPPLE BOY!"

I won't go into details, but suffice it to say we had a car fulla computer equipment. The nurses helped us drag it upstairs, and the whole while Stewie the Frosh was staring at us, smiling a toothless grin and talking smack. He could only use the keyboard after we duct-taped it to the side of his bedframe. For a mouse, we strapped a Logitech Trackman to his cast so that he could move the trackball with his big toe.

A thermometer was sticking out of his mouth as the match began. What followed was the most intense scene of human agony I have ever witnessed. With each rocket he shot, he howled in pain. With each death, he shook and shuddered. I was ahead ... first by one frag ... then another. My friends begged me to have mercy, as my opponent began to quiver and gasp for air, but above all else I heard his voice ... "You can't ... *cough* hit ... *shudder* NOTHIN'!" At one point, he actually flatlined. Doctors were administering those electric heart-shocker-things, keeping one eye on his EKG and the other on our frag-count. ("You killed him!" my friends cried. "You saw I was winning before he died, right?" I asked.) My nemesis managed to recover and came to just before the match ended --

Yes. Stewie the Frosh had been defeated by ten points.

"Noo-ooo!" he gasped, coughing up chunks of warm spewtim while the nurses tried to hold him down. They started shooting him with sedatives. "You only beat me 'cuz I went through the roof of the library," he choked. "And I have a world atlas shoved up my butt. You couldn't hit nothin'."

I was infuriated... but the man had a point. He was in traction. There was only one way to even the odds. I stood up and addressed the room in a clear, reasoned tone. "Take me ... to the FRAT-A-PULT!"

"Wooo!" Stewie yelled, before lapsing into unconsciousness from internal bleeding. Within half an hour I was sitting in the barber's chair at the frat house, telling Stewie's drunken brothers to aim me at the library and launch me full power.

Sadly, though, I'm quite a bit lighter than Stewie the Frosh. I overshot the library, completely missed it. I must've flown a country mile -- I didn't recognize the building I landed in until after I had crashed through the skylight. I landed in a bed with clean white sheets. A hospital bed. It broke my fall -- I got to my feet and was completely unharmed. To my stunned horror I was standing in Stewie's very room.

"I knew it... You couldn't hit nothin'," he said.