In Theory Narrative

In a model game of Chicken,

The highest payoff outcome goes

To the player who does not swerve

But lets the other player swerve.

You survive, and you win the dare.

The worst outcome is to not swerve

When the other player doesn’t.

Mutual assured destruction—

That is if you play the version

Where you both drive at each other,

So to speak. In-between, chicken,

You lose. The other player wins.

But you live, at least. Modelers

Assign abstract outcome values,

Then behavioral researchers

Award monetary payouts,

Obviously not life or death.

But life has accidental games

As well that don’t model as well.

A student frustrated with games

And mathematical models

Erupted with a narrative

About his night drive through desert

And how one night a semi-truck

Was approaching him in the dark

On a high-speed two-lane highway,

Pitch-black world except for headlights,

And just as the truck was passing

Another pair of headlights popped

From behind and around the truck,

Attempting to overtake it.

There wasn’t a thing I could do!

The lights were coming right at me.

There wasn’t any time to brake.

The truck was flying right by me.

I knew I was about to die,

Then the lights coming straight at me

Went off the road and around me.

I shot right between the middle,

Gravel spraying me from the side

Where the other vehicle ripped

Right through the desert, just missing

Hitting me, the taillights rolling,

And then everything behind me,

The truck still roaring down its lane,

Disappearing, and I don’t know

What happened to the other one.

I didn’t look back. I just drove

On down the dark road, muttering

Something like, Well, that was fucked up.

So I won? I wasn’t trying.

Did the idiot who tried die?

And which player was the big truck?

In your model games, everyone

Either gets a decision or

Has no choice by definition,

But in that split-second Chicken

My non-decision wasn’t choice,

And who knows what those drivers chose.

How do we model my story?