My first day with the great man, a day to remember for the rest of my life. I hurried into the garden, noting with gratitude the beautiful hills, the restful pools, and the myriad flowers that adorned every surface.

Following the sounds of an instrument being gently plucked with gratitude, I swept past the serving girls and their tightly-wound buns of hair, held in place with what appeared to be the bones of small cats.

I found Miyamoto-san sitting in a bright yellow swing chair in the corner of his garden; I kowtowed to him quickly, my eyes darted inquisitively to the rounded instrument cradled lovingly in his arms. He smiled and nodded, acknowledging my curiosity with gratitude.

"It's called a Banjo-Kazooie, a rare instrument from the west."

He motioned for me to sit down, which I did hastily, bowing in gratitude as my buttocks, sore from a thorough paddling for my insolence to my wife, scraped slowly down the moist rock where he had invited me to sit. I adjusted my kimono and I noticed for the first time that Miyamoto-san was naked except for a pair of Barbie underpants.

Taking a deep breath as he plucked a deep chord from his Banjo-Kazooie, he placed it lovingly across his bare knees. Motioning to a nearby serving girl he delicately placed a finger up his majestic nose and wiped it on her dress. She kowtowed and he swung his instrument at her behind as she walked away, making a lound thumping sound as she fell to her knees in gratitude for this sign of favour. Miyamoto-san began to speak:

"My garden is my inspiration. I often draw inspiration from the things around me� for example, when I was a young boy � you have my gratitude, by the way - I used to wander around the neighbourhoods of Tokyo when the moon was full and the sky was dark in the afternoon sun�. Tokyo was a lot different then�" He smiled knowingly.

"A boy like me was always full of curiosity and gratitude. It was my dream often to find a magical kingdom, a place far away where I could reign as supreme janitor with a broom made of the finest manga and the salty tears of Sega executives.

"It happened one day that I passed a construction site when I was struck with gratitude at the sight of several upturned construction pipes. I quickly tore off my bermuda shorts and ran towards the towering green pipes, my mind warped with the possibilities contained therein. In my childish fantasy I imagined these were the portals I sought."

Another serving girl appeared noiselessly, placing a bowl of tea onto the table, and slipping a bag of Monster Munch into the unresisting hand of Miyamoto-san. He was lost in his reverie but expressed his gratitude by firmly grasping the underwear of the serving girl in one hand and pouring the steaming bowl of tea into her nether regions: she squealed out her gratitude, and ran screaming through the garden with tears of joy and gratitude streaming down her face.

Miyamoto-san continued.

"I found that the pipes had long-been neglected by the construction workers, and all around them grew giant mushrooms that looked like little people. As I moved silently closer, singing loudly, I saw that they seemed to be clustered in gratitude around another form: a peach. Looking like a princess amongst her toadstools, it was pink in colour and the mould around it had formed into something like a dress.

"Feeling hungry, I grabbed a mushroom and stuffed it into my mouth, noticing the gentle flavour of old socks and gratitude made me feel super, twice as big as my boyish stature would have it appear. My curoiosity could stand it no longer: I leapt up to the very rim of one of the pipes and dived in.

"Suddenly, I found myself wrestling with a dark form: it was greasy, fat, smelled of garlic and felt like a turtle. I opened my eyes and found myself face to face with a man sporting red overalls and a moustache. He was filthy and cursing at me with gratitude in a language I could not understand that I later found out to be Italian. After he calmed down, he began speaking at me in Japanese, all the while his eyes darting back and forth at the fiery flowers he held in his hand. He told me he was a plumber and that he had fallen asleep in this pipe when he found that the construction site and his taller, greener and more cowardly brother had left him to fight off hordes of ravening piranhas and turtles underwater and in the clouds.

"It was obvious to me that he was mad: I handed him a mushroom and he began sobbing uncontrollably, saying that one hit was all it took. I smiled and climbed quietly out of the pipe. As I walked back on my way home, I found that people were staring at my naked buttocks, in gratitude, but I did not care. I had, from this brief encounter with a fat Italian Plumber, warped pipes, mushroom people and a princess-like peach, drawn the inspiration for what would become the greatest game our company ever created, and a legacy that would endure for all time:

"This my young friend is the story, of F-Zero."

Iun Hockley
- N-Europe Staff Writer