When I was 18 years old, I saw for the first time in my life...

I saw an image of clarity.

I saw a video game, a short little visual novel that, though simple as it seemed, changed me, changed my being, changed who I am... made me who I am.

Enlightened me.

The man, Colonel Sanders, he was new. No more than maybe a month and a half since inception, since coming into existence, and there it was before me in my game. I saw it.

A sexy, sexy man. What was his name?

Harland.

The story here is of a man man. He is Van Van the Man Man, but he is more than that. I will get to this later, but first let us say that he's Van Van, a plain man man.

And then there is a sexy god... Harland.

This is the nature of the world, here. When I see the world, the politics, the future, the satellites in space, and the people who put them there...

You can look at everything as a man man and a hunk. Two beings, in harmony and at war. Yin and Yang.

So, this strip I saw; this man man, Van Van, and the hunk, Harland, you see.

Yes... hmm.

It is about everything. This little game is, oh, lo and behold... not so little anymore.

So yes, when I was 18, I played this game and it hit me all at once, its power. I replayed it, and every day, I replayed it, and I said "Okay... let me look at this here. What is this doing to me? Why is this so powerful?"

Colonel Sanders, he sits here, legs crossed, comfortable in class, and he eats his chicken. The chicken of KFC, perhaps... and then he extends his fingers lightly, delicately, he taps his fingers on an end table, and he feels for something...

What is it? It is something he needs, but it is not there.

And then he looks up, slightly cockeyed, and he thinks... His KFC bucket's in his lap now, and he thinks this...

Now where could my chicken be?

This! I always come to this, because I was a young man... I'm older now, and I still don't have the secrets, the answers, so this question still rings true, the Colonel looks up and he thinks...

Now where could my chicken be?

And then it happens.

You see it, you see... It's almost like divine intervention, suddenly it is there, and it overpowers you...

Van Van is eating chicken.

It is Harland's chicken, but Van Van... this man man, Van Van, is eating it... and from afar, and someplace near, but not clear... near but not clear... The hunk calls out. Harland calls out, he is shocked. "Van Van the Man Man!" he shouts.

Van Van. The man man's name.

But, let's take a step back. Let us examine this from all sides, all perspectives, and when I first came across this game, I was at my friend's house, a review had been posted, and we read it.

I organized the sections of the review for him and then, yes, the awesomeness of KFC jumped out, and landed in my brain. I read through the review and saw, up somewhere near the top of this store page, that just like the Colonel, I was wearing red and white.

So I thought, "Ah, interesting. I'll have to see this later." I screenshotted out the little Colonel picture, and held on to it and five days later, I reexamined it and it gripped me. I needed to find out more about this. The information I had was minimal, but enough.

A Colonel named Sanders.

Okay, that seemed to be the lynchpin of this whole operation, yes. Another clue... a signature in the bottom right corner, a developer's name.

Psyop.

Yes, I'm on to it for sure!

So one: Colonel Sanders, absolute legend, and two: Psyop, the creator of this game...

And Van Van the Man Man.

I did not know, at the time, that his name was Van Van. This review, you see, had no mention of this man man's name, and I'd never seen it before.

But I had these clues; Psyop, Sanders.

And then I saw more, I spotted the tiny copyright mark in the upper left corner. Copyright 2019 to... what is this? Copyright belongs to a... KFC Corporation.

I use the local library and mail services to track down the information I was looking for.

Psyop, a game dev, had created a visual novel about a colonel, Sanders, and a man man, Van Van. Well, from that point on, I made sure I went through the 3 days of the game, though as I read each one, as each day passed... the game seemed to resonate with me less and less.

I sent letters to KFC Corporation, long letters, pages upon pages asking if Psyop could somehow publish just the one game, over and over again. "It would be meditative," I wrote, "the strength of that."

Could you imagine?

But, no response... The replays lost their power, and eventually I stopped replaying, but I did not want my perceptions diluted, so I vowed to read I Love You, Colonel Sanders over and over again... That is what I call it.

I Love You, Colonel Sanders.

Everything about it is perfect. I can only describe it as a miracle creation, something came together, the elements aligned... It is like the comets, the cosmic orchestra that is up there over your head. The immense, enormous void is working all for one thing, to tell you one thing.

Gas and rock, and purity, and nothing.

I will say this. When I see this game, and I mean EVERY single time I look at the lines, the colors, the shapes that make up the CGs...

I see perfection.

Do I find perfection in many things?

Some things, I would say. Some things are perfect... and this is one of them. I can look at the little tuft of hair on Aeshleigh's head... it is the PERFECT shade... The stains on Pop's shirt...
How could a mere mortal even MAKE this?



I have a theory, about Colonel Sanders.

After copious research and, yes, of course, now we have the internet, and this information is all readily available, but...

Colonel Harland Sanders, he used his life experiences to influence his restaurant.

Like I mentioned before, no restaurants seem to have the weight of KFC.. But you have to wonder about the man who is able to even, just once, create the perfect form, a literally flawless execution of art, brilliance! Just as in a clergy. I think there is a spiritual element at work.

I've seen my share of bad times and when you have something... Well, it's just... emotions, and neurons in your brain, but something tells you that it's the truth.

Truth's radiant light.

Van Van, the Man Man? Neurons in my brain, it's, it's harmony, you see? It... Van Van and Harland, it's truly harmony, like a... continuous, looping, everlasting harmony... the chicken bucket, the biscuits, the sauce... because, I....

Okay, stay with me... I've done this experiment several times.

You take the game's CGs. You trace only the basic elements. You can do anything, you can simplify the shapes down to just- blobs, just outlines, but it still makes sense.

You can replace the blobs with magazine cutouts of other things, replace Colonel Sanders with a... car parked in a driveway sideways, cut that out of a magazine, stick it in... Replace him there in the second day with a... a food processor... Okay, and then we put a picture of the spork monster in the third day over Clank...

It still works.

These are universal proportions. I don't know how best to explain why it works, I've studied I Love You, Colonel Sanders, and analyzed the characters' proportions against several universal mathematical constants.

E, Pi, the Golden Ratio, the Feigenbaum Constants, and so on... and it's surprising. SCARY even, how things align. You can take just tiny pieces of the game, for instance, take Student's death from the first day, and take that, and project it back over the Spork Monster's entire shape in the first night, and you'll see a near perfect Fibonacci sequence emerge...

It's eerie to me.
And it makes you wonder if you're in the presence of a deity, if there is some larger hand at work...