With the two murky green eyes God saw fit to place into my skull, I’ve seen a dead man swinging from a tree in the early morning; I was briefly abducted by a recently-released psycho ward patient and an Indian in order to attend an art show in the basement of a dilapidated apartment building that was carpeted in grass; I’ve roamed some of the darkest, loneliest streets in America, where a man may very well lose his religion in a maelstrom of trash.

And yet, all of this is rather insignificant – childish, even – when I think back a year ago during Summer’s youngest kin. August 2006 was when my life began. Up until this point, I’d known of many terrible things, sure. What my mother and father had failed to make known to me – what they couldn’t have known, really – is that every year, when the moon is absent from the sky, when crows circle the forests counterclockwise, when God hangs his head in shame – a group of individuals unite under one roof. They call this sort of gathering Otakon. I’m not certain of its inception into the world – nor do I care, really; I’m also not in complete understanding as to why Baltimore was decided upon as an otaku mecca. Even now, when I think back on those three horrible days a year ago, when the streets were lined with cardboard sword-totting samurai and more Sephiroth cosplayers than you can shake a buster sword at, I can’t help but cry a little.

There were a few hurdles to jump before we (Ryan Butler, Eric Lane and myself) could even get in to the Baltimore Convention Center and attend Otakon. I guess I should clarify: by “hurdles” I mean things that should have been warning signs for us to leave town for a week, rather than jump head-first into a nerd cesspool. I don’t know, I mean, maybe we thought there would be hot girls there or something in that vein. Maybe we were excited to show off our Mario Kartin’ skills at their touted tournaments I’d read about on their website. It couldn’t have been the anime, of that I am certain. I don’t even like anime! Oh, but that little pamphlet on Otakon I’d procured – did it ever make this sound like heaven on earth. Really, it was hell. Absolute hell. But at the time, they (whoever ‘they’ are) were really selling it to me. Video game panels might have been what pushed me over the edge, I think. The greatest part about it, though, is that I only attended one panel during my entire stay in the convention center. And wouldn’t you know it, it was on Yaoi – a term I was then ignorant of.

Alright, alright – I was unemployed and the convention center was three blocks from my apartment building. That was my reasoning. Being the smart fellow I am, I poured the few funds I had into a $60 entry pass to Otakon rather than putting food in my stomach.

As August 3rd approached, I spoke of our loose itinerary to my colleagues and friends. Eric came to town on the 2nd; Ryan would not arrive for another two days. Although the convention didn’t even begin until the 4th, the day before was set aside for “early registration”. Basically, this means avoiding having to stand in line with a bunch of people dressed like ninjas and superheroes the day of the con (as Otakon was warmly referred to as). This sounded like a spectacular idea! we thought. True to our nature, we made sure to point out to Ryan Butler – many times over – that his late arrival would mean having to get his pass on the 4th. He seemed disenchanted – maybe scared – but took it like a man. That’s all he really could do.

The registration would begin at 3:00, we were told, and we diligently left my apartment (again, only three blocks away) thirty minutes prior since “trust me, Eric, nobody is going to do early registration”. Well, as it turns out, like a thousand people showed up. As you can imagine, the line was composed of over and underweight nerds who made me feel cool. From Shy Guys to white-haired, feminine boys dressed as God knows what from some Japanese cartoon, it made the whole experience feel like hanging out in the changing room of Cirque du Soleil. But rather than being toned, French Canadian and scary, they were just scary. And not scary in that “man, bats scare me!” sense, but a “my grandmother just depicted her extramarital affairs from the 40s to me over coffee cake” sort of scary. Oh, and most of them were quite obese; their weight astounded me not for its overabundance, but for their ability to squeeze into skimpy outfits that would put Malibu girls to shame, and make them ill at the same time. Like, violently ill. So sick that they would not even be able to fit into their skimpy clothes anymore. Those clothes, then, would be given to these very same otakus – for pajamas, I imagine.

We stared into the sun and the sun stared back. Irreparable retina damage was a small price to pay in order to avert my eyes from perhaps the most grandiose ass I’ve ever had the displeasure to forcibly lay eyes upon. I should say asses, I suppose; they surrounded me like an over-confident army; they took me prisoner with their unnatural curvatures and valley-like depths. Had they been unsheathed – these asses – I can imagine them resembling that asteroid that the Millennium Falcon’s nimble crew hid inside during The Empire Strikes Back. Yup, space slug and all.

A wire-haired gentleman with thick glasses and one of those tacky Dragon Ball Z button-down shirts approached the group of otherwise forgettable otakus to my immediate right. He was not dressed in any sort of costume, yet he held what appeared to be a Guitar Hero box in his hands. The word “guitar”, however, had been taped over with “sitar”. I guess he thought this was funny. Well, the sun didn’t. Not ten minutes later, he began screaming and half-crying to his otaku brethren:

“OH GOD OH GOD AGGGGHHHHHH IT BURNS IT BURNS! YAAAHHHHHH!”

Using the “Sitar” Hero box he’d once held proudly by his waist, he now feverishly brandished it above his wire-haired head, in a feeble attempt to stop the ultraviolet rays that penetrated his freckled, flaking skin.

“OHMYGOD GET THE PARAMEDICS – HE’S HAVING A SUN ATTACK”

No sooner had a blonde-headed Sailor Moon cosplayer cried to the mean streets of Baltimore for immediate medical attention, another of their comrades fell to the sidewalk and, as Kevin O’Dell would say, screamed like the devil was inside her. That girl – I swear to a sonnet serenading satan – that girl was a victim to the merciless star from the heavens. Two volunteer Otako staff members, dressed from head-to-toe in mercenary commando outfits, cradled the two frightened and scorched friends, rushing them to the front of the line where they were given water, and forced to wait until their place in line reached the door.

I can’t remember us doing anything more than blinking afterwards.

We didn’t sleep that night. I could have been contently nestled betwixt my wonderfully soft sheets – instead, I road around on a mountain bike wearing a t-shirt and boxer briefs. Looping in and out of the convention center’s parking lot and entranceway, I probably pissed a hell of a lot people off. Many of these travelers from other lands seemed to think that Baltimore was an ideal place to not secure lodging at. They’re only half-wrong, I guess. If the homeless folk can do it, they figured they could, too. Most of them sat around on the sidewalk, grumpily staring at darkened restaurants. I peddled around in my modest attire and greeted everyone I saw; for the most part, nobody really acknowledged me. I can see why they wouldn’t.

When I was making my rounds along the east side of the building for the seventh or eighth time, I took note of two young girls sitting listlessly on a park bench. I came to screeching halt and introduced myself.

“Oh, we’re from Pennsylvania. My boyfriend – God, I hate him – drove us here and dropped us off. I guess we didn’t think we’d need clothes or a place to sleep for three days,” said the first girl, who, to me, looked like she was in her second or third trimester.

“We’ll be all right. Yeah, we’ll be all right. We’ll just sleep on this park bench. Yeah,” said the other, a rather chubby sort of girl with grandfatherly eyes – eyes that made you hate yourself.

I don’t know what exactly came over me – maybe it was pity – but I told them that they could stay at my apartment for three days. After the offer jumped off of my tongue, I immediately regretted making it. Great, I thought, now a seventeen year old soon-to-be-mother with an Invader Zim shirt and a rotten attitude, and her pudgy, creepy friend are going to sleeping on our futon; eating our food; talking to each other within audible range. I gasped, and for a moment, the blood in my veins stopped, reversed the natural direction in which it flows, and ignited to 300 degrees. Celsius.

They were going to be showering, using my towels and, Lord help me, making frequent use of my precious indoor plumbing.

Pregnant Zim exuberantly hugged me; her bastard of a would-be child my only barrier from being obligated to hug her back.

“Uhh… follow me, I guess. My apartment is past the convention center.”

They hurriedly pranced behind me as I walked alongside the bike. There’s no way a seven-month pregnant girl and a chubby… whatever she was would be able to keep up with me had I been riding the bike. I felt really awful. Here I just wanted to help two girls who don’t know how to use goddamn Orbitz, and now I’ve burdened myself and those staying and living in my apartment with unwanted guests. Just as I’d finally convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, Pregnant Zim excitedly announced to her friend:

“Oh, oh! And I can’t wait to take a niiiiiccccce, looooonnnng shower! Ooooo!”

Later that morning, I searched Amazon for new towels.

Brent, my roommate, was pretty displeased with the presence of said girls. He was, after all, rightfully justified in his displeasure. He was even more displeased, he later informed me, when he found himself sitting on the futon with Creepy Chub. This girl, it seems, had a horrid, earth-shaking tendency to be, well, rather flatulent. The beams of the futon, he said, rumbled and quaked beneath them. It was then that he rushed to the kitchen and informed me that we needed to conjure up a plan to get these sons of bitches out of our precious abode. Meanwhile, Pregnant Zim was finishing up her tarnishing of our bathroom. The once-fluffy and inviting towel lay sopping wet on the bathroom floor after being dragged across the pregnant body of a girl whose face visits me in nightmares from time to time.

I retreated to my room as per the plan, and called Brent’s phone. Brent was in the living room making small talk as Brent often did. His phone rang, and he picked up.

“Oh, Ashley! Goodness, you’re coming to town? Today?”

He had obviously mastered the “fake phone conversation”. As it would be impossible to replicate here, know that he paused at precisely the right times, for precisely right the lengths of time it would take for her to respond. The girls felt uncomfortable at the thought of intervening with a surprise visit from Brent’s “girlfriend” and, fearing an awkward climate, left the building. We wearily celebrated and hit the streets.

Baltimore had transformed overnight into a scarier place than it had already been. As we dodged playful sword-fighting and an unsettling number of cross-dressers, we made our way to the congested entrance of the convention center. Ryan Butler had been in line for hours at this point, all alone in a world that didn’t love him, awaiting an Otakon badge he would later hang around his neck in shame. Eric, Brent and I stood atop the convention center near the balcony taking pictures and talking to various con-goers as they passed us by. Even with our passes, we would still have to wait in line just to even make it into the building. Once Butler was inside the building, we found a pretty hilarious loop-hole to Otakon’s supposedly tight security. Ryan literally just opened one of forty or so doors that line the balcony and let us in, thus making the $60 entrance fee a sordid, unnecessary chore. Brent left us to go to work, after snapping a considerable amount of pictures of prepubescent girls strangling each other, and we took the plunge into the unknown.

Everyone in the convention center was dressed up as some sort of character from some sort of comic/movie/video game. We, on the other hand, were not. Oddly enough, even in our plain, everyday clothes, we felt like outsiders. People stared and gawked at us because t-shirts and jeans at an anime convention are so passé. I felt, for the first time in my life, like a minority. While I imagine those adorned as Ash Ketchum and Pyramid Head were outcasts in their own right in the Real World, here, they were demi-gods; they were extensively photographed and applauded for their ingenuity in terms of costume creation. We were invisible.

We shambled about for an hour or so before calling it quits. Our grand scheme to cover the convention in and out, to understand the otaku culture and present our work, well, it just didn’t pan out. In all honesty, it was a decidedly awful affair. The convention floor was home to little else than anime panels none of us had any knowledge or interest in, thousands upon thousands of costumed degenerates and three young men who hadn’t slept in 30+ hours that harbored a will to return to the dust of the earth.

On the way out of the building, I made a quick stop at the bathroom. Standing in front of a mirror at least 100 ft. long, I looked at my aching, drooping face. The purplish sheen under my eyes was a visual reminder of just how long it had been since I’d slept. To put it bluntly, I looked like shit. Absolute hell. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to make the five minute trip home. This bathroom was particularly soundproof, and I say this because the hall itself was excruciatingly loud. The fact that I couldn’t hear anything but the running water I’d used to splash my face was a comforting reminder that I was — finally — alone. After all the time, money and thought I’d put in to crafting the very first octonaut article, I felt as if we’d failed. I felt as if, well, I’d failed. Yet, here I was, in the tan bathroom of the Baltimore Convention Center of all places, shaking profusely from sleep deprivation, cold water running from my forehead and into my murky green eyes. And then, a drum broke the silence and returned me to planet earth. Is… is that a drum beat coming from the stall at the opposite end of the bathroom?

Clumsily exiting the second stall from the end, a teenage boy, perhaps no older than sixteen, stepped beneath a dimmed overhead light and readjusted what appeared to be a large taiko drum that hung from his shoulder like an miniature barrel.

“O-o-oh, s-s-sorry… I was just… practicing my drum beat. I didn’t know anyone was out here, sorry.”

After this boy admitted that he was catching up on his rhythmic percussion while taking a shit, he shyly bowed his head and sped off towards the door, his taiko rattling back and forth as he struggled to hold his pants up. I was alone. I exited my sanctuary and met back up with Ryan and Eric. The three of us trudged out one of the hundred or so doors feeling completely exposed. Back in my apartment, away from Otakon and the world, I collapsed on my bed and dreamt the dream of a wounded soldier.

Lastly, Ryan Butler looks back…

Upon reflecting, Otakon has left me with two lasting thoughts.

First off, I lost a substantial amount of fear of cities, while at the same time gaining a great deal of respect for Otakon-goers for their boldness. After watching a group of mollycoddled teenagers, who were clad as X-men, traverse Baltimore in the middle of the night, I grew rather curious how none of these disillusioned individuals got mugged. Many didn’t even get a hotel room, instead just sleeping on the streets. I have wandered around Baltimore late in the night, and for those who haven’t, I assure you, it is a frightening scene. I distinctly recall the first night I visited Ryan at his apartment, and as we sat upon the roof of the building, gunshots rang out a mere block away. So, yeah, I would never sleep on the streets, even if I was dressed as Cloud Strife and had a cardboard Buster Sword.

Secondly, I still hold today is the amazement at the lack of shame in these people. As I stood in line for my pass, I still remember seeing people driving by, the disappointment depicted clearly on their faces. Yet, everyone else in line, such as the cross-dressers and people wielding plastic firearms, didn’t seem to notice that there was anyone else looking into their three day world. I guess the disillusionment is truly wonderful. These people are sincerely happy, and they don’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinion. I, personally, envy this confidence, the ability to not feel obligated to act in any particular way.