06/15/2023
Experience a Seinfeld-themed choose-your-own-finale spy parody so epic it needed 37 separate endings!
You’re a spy.
Your name is Gerald Mindfeld, and you’re a spy.
It bears repeating. Sometimes you still don’t believe it. Waking up under park benches and in hovels condemned by the city, it always takes you a moment to remember who and what and where you are. And your first thought, when it all crashes down on you in your first moments of clarity, is always, “That can’t be right.”
And yet, it always turns out to be.
You woke up in the Hudson, once. You’re still not sure how that happened, but your first thought was the same–it just took you extra time to fill in the gaps, as you clawed your way up to the surface.
But that was a long time ago. Today you’re here, leaning on the railing of an abandoned pier looking out over that same river.
You’ve trapped yourself here because you’re tired of waiting. A van’s been trailing you off and on for the better part of a week–mostly off, but also a distressing amount of on. Every time you ducked into and out the back of a Brooklyn grocery, it was back on you in a few hours. When you woke up this morning, leaning against the side of an abandoned warehouse, you decided to see which mistake from your past had finally caught up to you.
And so you’ve parked your keister here, at the end of a lonely pier, where you decided, all of three minutes ago, not to go down without a fight.
Which is why you pulled out the only weapon you had–a stun-gun.
Which is why, when the seagull hovering over you let out a piercing squawk, your finger spasmed.
Which is why you’re now looking down at a very stunned seagull dangling from two wires a foot above the Hudson.
You’re deciding how to hoist the bird back up when you hear a van door slide open behind you. You don’t hear it close–it’s either meant to be a speedy extraction, or the coroner will find you sprawled out at the end of this pier with a couple extra holes in your chest. You pull the unconscious bird up, gently fold its wings down against its body, and tuck it under your arm.
“Alright, past,” you mutter, looking out over the steamy river. “Let’s catch up.”
“Mindfeld!”
It’s a deep voice. He sounds to be twenty feet behind you–a cautious one. You turn around and almost recognize him—tall, thick-chested, a short shock of dark brown hair. Two men are flanking him, wearing the same dark sunglasses and dark suit he is. Each with a flash of orange in his left ear.
They’re with the Agency, then. Your old employer. This only causes your shoulders to relax a little.
About a month ago, you hacked into the Agency’s computer systems and altered their outgoing purchase orders. A week later, the Agency received three-hundred-thousand tangerine-colored earpieces. It makes sense they’d be unhappy with you.
“That’s Agent Mindfeld,” you call back to him. “I didn’t become a street mentalist, then get recruited into a spy agency, then fake my own death to get out of said spy agency to be called just-Mindfeld.”
“I have orders to bring you in,” the man says before adding, “Agent Mindfeld.”
“Really,” you say, less a question than an acknowledgment. You look away for a minute, sucking your teeth, then look back at him and say, “You know, that’s really not gonna work for me. I have a 10:30 with,” and you can’t think of anyone else, so you say, “Jesus.”
“By any means necessary,” the man clarifies, an edge of warning in his voice.
“So it’s like that.”
“Seems that way,” he says.
“Nice earpiece,” you say. “Really brings out your eyes.”
You notice he has his hand near his hip, where you assume he’s holstering a neon pink stun-gun, which you’re only now remembering you also added to that purchase order (what else did you put in there?–for some reason the phrase “seven hundred gallons of Vermont maple syrup” is coming to mind).
You decide not to press your luck, so you leave the railing and step closer to him before saying, “Listen, I’ll come quietly. But only if you let me take my bird. I don’t go anywhere without my bird. I’m like that guy from Iron Man 2.”
He c***s his head at you, and you add, “Tony Stark. Except I have a bird.”
The man looks at you, then turns to look at one of the men behind him, who makes a “fine” gesture with his shoulder.
***Experience the Seinfeld-themed choose-your-own-finale spy parody today!
Mindfeld: The Movie: The Unauthorized Novelization
