The dust has long settled at Moo Moo Farms. It’s a miserable sight. The varied contestants – Mario, Donkey Kong Jr., the guy with the mushroom for a head – they all went home years ago with their trophies in hand. The Monty Moles have even packed up their bags and moved on with their lives, unable to cope with a life where they couldn’t pop their heads out of their holes with the singular, suicidal purpose of being nailed by a speeding go kart.

The Mario Kart Grand Prix has not been back to Moo Moo Farms for over a decade now – though the contest coordinators have scheduled a race or two at a nearby meadow. The farm itself, which depended on the business of those who watched the races with creamy milk moustaches on their faces, closed its doors in 2002. The grass has gone from green to grey, and the dirt track littered with jagged rocks.

Though the picture looks bleak, there is a lingering sign of life speeding around the track. It is propelled by an unseen force, rigidly darting from side to side as if on a track: a blue spiky turtle shell, the bane of the frontrunner’s existence. It is an item so annoying and accurate that it was banned from play in future tournaments, one that instantly seeks out whoever is winning and punishes them for being the best.

This particular shell was somehow forgotten when the last race ended over ten years ago and has been going around the track ever since. With no front place runner to harass, it circles the track on autopilot, a confused machine in an endless loop.

Today, at midnight, it will complete its 1,112,392th lap. That’s no landmark, but the regularity of the thing – like the steady ticking of a clock – makes one wonder, What has happened in the world since this weapon was first sent out? A million lives have been lost, another million gained; wars have been fought and won and lost; hearts have been sewn together as well as ripped apart; the world has turned around and around and around as the little blue shell makes its regular trip around the track.

The blue turtle shell is only the tip of the iceberg. One has to wonder, are there still banana peels rotting on the brunette slopes of Choco Mountain? And how many fake item boxes have been left to the elements out in Yoshi Valley? These are the things we never think about when the confetti has been swept away and the winners and losers have all been chosen.

No one will come to blue turtle shell; no one knows it is here. Perhaps one day an unlucky bird will spot an earthworm in the soil and explode in a mess of blood and feathers, we don’t know. All we can be sure of is that, if left alone, the blue shell zipping around Moo Moo Farms will seek, for eternity, to spoil the race for an individual who no longer exists: the champion in the making, the driver out in front. And so we must let it be.