When my grandson was about to go into surgery a few months ago, he quizzed the doctor. Was it going to hurt? Would the anesthetic affect his brain? Would he lose his “files?” (His memory, in other words.)

The doctor reassured him that he had nothing to fear, and when they wheeled Alex out of the recovery room, he propped himself up on the gurney and brightly announced that his files had been restored. He remembered his name, his birthday, everything.

“We booted him back up,” the doctor said, keeping the computer analogy alive.

For a couple of weeks afterwards, before his return to Germany, where his Dad was stationed in the Army, I had the pleasure of his company and attempted to join him in the virtual reality where he spends most of his time. In Alex’s realm, good and evil grapple in eternal combat. It’s the Good Guys versus the Evil Geniuses from sunrise to bedtime.

Everywhere he goes is a battlefield, from the living room to the aisles of the grocery store. Outside, the sky is always dark with enemy’s warships, swooping down at the speed of light, shattering the peace of every blessed day with their shock and awe. Kerpow! Bzaaap! Rat-a-tat-tat! Per-keesh! Puck-a-tish-u! Zap! Blam!

Alex’s make-believe world, in other words, isn’t that different from our own.

Pacifists would be alarmed at the plastic weapons and warships we showered on Alex to compensate for his medical ordeal: a Nerf gun with liquitron power gauge that fires six suction-cupped arrows, a dune buggy with surface-to-air missiles, a Heavy Hog attack helicopter and a formidable array of tanks, fighter planes, soldiers, even a gladiator’s breast plate and sword.

For the most part, I myself am non-violent. War games aren’t my cup of tea. But I know it would be futile to try to persuade Alex to play butcher, baker or candlestick maker. If I want to relate to him, I must assume the mantle of a Good Guy and fight the forces of evil at his side.

And I admit that a shopping trip becomes more interesting when mace-wielding manticores and fire-breathing fiends with pterodactyl wings leap out and challenge you at every step. It gives a stodgy granddad a renewed sense of purpose to know that the fate of civilization lies in entirely in his hands and those of his 8-year-old companion.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured me when a swarm of delta wing bombers dove down on us. “Their bombs won’t penetrate our mother pod.” A couple of pow-pows and a zap from our laser cannon and the enemy was vaporized. I glanced at my 1987 Dodge Ram. What other truck in the parking lot could claim to be a “mother pod?”

Occasionally, I made the mistake of poking gentle fun at our mission.

“This mother pod looks like a rusted-out heap,” I once said. Retribution came swiftly. Alex stripped me of my rank, designated me a Bad Guy, sent me to the dungeon and condemned me to a diet of ground glass.

“You don’t sound like such a Good Guy to me,” I complained.

“Don’t make fun,” Alex said.

If I wanted to play, I must observe the rules of the game, he said. Rule Number One is that he is supreme commander and sole author of our fantasies.

We were driving along in apparent safety when he cried out, “We’ve lost an engine!”

“We’re losing altitude, Sir,” I shouted, playing along. “Should we bail out and use our parachutes?”

“No!” he cried indignantly. “We’re under water.” So much for parachutes. And woe to me if I try to grab the initiative.

“I’m lowering the periscope. Dive! Dive! Dive!” I bellowed once. Alex threw a fit.

“We’re not under water!” he said.

“Then why do I see fish swimming past our windows?” I asked. He was silent for a beat, then answered.

“Those are space fish. Besides, if we were under water, how would be breathe?”

Once in the glow of triumph he proclaimed, “We are the hamsters of the universe!”

“Don’t you mean the Masters of the Universe?” I asked.

“No! Hamsters.”

Sometimes, when Alex is wrapped up in his mission, I just listen in. There’s no question his imagination is more fertile than my own. His fluency in command mode and his aplomb in the heat of battle are wondrous.

“I need two volunteers to destroy the enemy. Do you read me? Bring in the artillery! Fire in the blue circle! All stations into attack position. Quick! Head for the mother pod!” (Klaxon whoops, followed by the Star Wars Victory March.)

In the most dangerous predicament, he always has a plan.

“We’ll trick the enemy with holographic men. They’ll waste their ammo. Then we can attack and slaughter them.”

“What if we capture some enemies, Sir?”

“Hold them for ransom. Persuade them to be good.”

Once, in the thick of battle, I slipped in a question about Alex’s activities on the playground at his school in Germany. For a moment, I caused us to stumble into a world parallel to his intergalactic one. The name of a certain Caitlin, one of his classmates, came up.

“Is she cute?” I asked. Alex grew serious.

“Yes!” he almost sighed. “She plays Queen Amadalla .”

Then with visible agitation he mentioned one Ashton. Ashton turned out to be the playground bully. According to Alex, Ashton possessed enormous powers for doling out misery to his peers.

“We’re just sitting ducks,” he said. “Soon he’ll have control over all the kids on the playground. And we are doing nothing to stop him.”

He pleaded with me to show up in Germany with “about 40 good, strong kids” to “take Ashton out.”

We’d found ourselves at the crossroads of fantasy and reality, between chimerical foes and mundane enemies, holographic heroes and flesh-and-blood bullies. We stood face to face with childhood fears.

Alex’s father, a helicopter pilot, is now stationed in the Mideast, where fighting the enemy is not a game that gives players extra lives. Alex wonders when he’ll see his dad again. He must learn to deal with Germans who’ve become hostile to Americans. Adolescence lies ahead. For Alex, the real wars have just begun.

— George Gurley, who lives in rural Baldwin, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.