This is a print copy of “Department Store Lord Wolnir.” I originally read this essay out loud at my inaugural literary video game night, Heart of Darkness, on June 8, 2024. I am planning to host another themed event for my reading series in the fall, in New York City. 

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There is a chalice. It's a cup made of a dirty half skull, but I reach for it because I'm playing Dark Souls 3. Soon, darkness is everywhere. Black smoke spills from the chalice's eyes like mascara tears, hovering around its jaw as if it expects to find empathetic skin there. It caresses what it can, then it zooms to the ground like a popped balloon, filling the room with smog. It blows out all the buttery candlelight — this isn't a birthday party. I've been transported into the Abyss, where High Lord Wolnir lives. 

High Lord Wolnir reminds me of a lot of women I know. He waits in his bedroom like a Klimt painting, drowning in gold, and he hopes that someone will come and love him. I'm guessing that's why he's rudely moved me into his dingy boss arena. I try to wander and kind of do my own thing, but he immediately reveals himself to me in full regalia: three chunky gold bracelets, a necklace inlaid with raindrops of precious stone, and a crown that emphasizes his cheekbones like a brassy picture frame. 

I don't want to be mean about it, but he isn't beautiful. He's a stegosaurus-sized human skeleton, but, while his face is frozen into a snarl, I personally think his molars are a little too stubby for him to come across as intimidating as Megan Fox. The cloudy Abyss that surrounds him is also slowly sucking up his body, so he's all torso and giant head. I don't know who he thinks he's kidding with no pelvis. 

It's easy to defeat him. All I need to do is whack my greatsword into his wrists a few times, and his blessed bracelets will split. I imagine he's wearing Cartier love bracelets in white gold, or something aggressively Western European by Van Cleef & Arpels. I don't like these things, so I imagine them as Wolnir's bracelets to motivate my determined smacking. I'm competitive, and I feel myself fill with pride about a vintage garnet ring I got a few months ago for a great deal. As I congratulate myself, one of Wolnir's cuffs finally snaps. It bursts apart into a sunbeam, and Wolnir recoils, backing up into the Abyss. He sends retaliatory smoke through his hollow ribs, aiming at me, and the dim path ahead fills with his deadly octopus ink. 

The darkness destroys my health bar. I wasn't expecting Wolnir's Hail Mary, but it helps me truly understand him. Despite what I assumed, he isn't decadent like "The Kiss." He's a terrified poem by Jorie Graham — "The dead / in their sheer / open parenthesis, what they / wouldn’t give / for something to lean on," she writes. "They say when Klimt / died suddenly / a painting, still / incomplete, / was found in his studio, / a woman’s body / open at its point of / entry." I gasp with the suddenness of my realization.

I'm actually sorry for Wolnir. He tries to obscure his vulnerability with cool, winking metal, but even gold gets lost in the dark. I remember that I used to have engraved gold bangles, too — my dad brought them to me from Bangladesh. Where were they in my house? When was the last time I saw them in my bedroom? I try not to dwell on it as I deliver a final blow, a little regretfully. Wolnir sinks back into his chalice, vanquished. But I'm stuck in the dark.