Adventures in the Corn Board

I must’ve hacked into this server a million times as the first step in accessing, well, a million other systems. An open port 22 on an obscure government agency tucked away in an old office building where they know how to send emails about corn and not much more. But this time

I saw something I'd never seen before. A fully functional version of the arcade classic Joust running in my browser window. I enjoyed a few games, wondering if it was the work of a bored grain lobbyist, or a fellow cybernaut.

I was 9 years old the last time I'd played Joust. Ned's Pizza had one of those table versions of the game, but I never got far. This time I beat it. Immediately there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a woman on an ostrich. "Greetings, Joustfigther," she said.

Mounted on my own ostrich, lance in hand, I gave the bird a squeeze causing a single flap to lift me, with a satisfying "SHWAP!", ever so slightly higher than the opposing female ostrich jockey. The tip of my lance engaged her, immediately transforming her into a floating egg

The egg flew me over the beautiful sea, and as I looked down, I saw dolphins with princess crowns jump over and over. I then heard a engine rumble cough, and smelled gas from far behind,

Coronated dolphins? What had I eaten last night? A spritz of water indicated this was real and not the double enchilada from Chili’s. A boat quickly approached. I remembered the object in my pocket and threw it in the air, creating a fog storm, allowing us a passage to safety.