The boy was very excited when we got him the PS3 for Christmas, or perhaps birthday. Secondhand, but not yet redundant. Its successor, greater and grander by a whole integer, was still relatively new. People were selling old consoles as they sprang for the new improved model. Like cars, like hi-fi gear, like bicycles or food processors or any desirable apparatus. The need for new.
Games were purchased, at the on-line marketplace or from the trade-in bins at the shop in the big centre. He worked it all out remarkably quickly. This is what it means to be a digital native, I thought. I remembered the first video game I ever saw. Fittingly, for it was built to resemble a coffee table, it sat amongst the abused vinyl armchairs in the Student Union’s second floor coffee lounge. Imitation woodgrain with a coin slot on the side, a button to start the game, and a couple of knobs. Glass topped, the upper surface was pure coffee table around the edges, but had a cathode ray screen the size of an 10″ record cover in the centre. On this miniature television the game flickered into monochrome life. For one player, a one inch rectangle about the size of a slim cigarette butt moved side to side to block a small white square from passing the bat and entering oblivion. If you got the bat in the right place to block it, away it bounced to the other side of the screen where it cannoned into an invisible wall and returned. So it went, backwards and forwards, bouncing off invisible walls like a game of ghost squash. There was a two-player version where your opponent also had a bat. For a while people would stand and watch this novelty. Good players achieved some level of fame, or at least recognition. Eventually, everyone realised it was as exciting as watching traffic lights but less colourful. Cups and saucers began accumulating, leaving brown circles on the glass. When Space Invaders arrived downstairs, it became just another coffee table covered in cigarette ash and lunch crumbs.
Watching the boy on the couch, concentrating on the bouncing scenes of Lego Star Wars, I felt a pang of guilt about him being a single child. This is what siblings are for, shared play. So I tried to join in. Mastering the controller did nor come naturally, nor did working out what the game required. Frustration was intense. A refrain emerged. Which one am I? What’s happening? I’m dead. It would have been funny except I was grinding my teeth so hard I couldn’t smile. Despite my contribution he enjoyed playing, finding a child’s capacity for being immersed in the moment. I withdrew from lounge room gaming but later, in the era of more sophisticated worlds, would pause behind the couch as he sat under headphones, tapping the controller like a mad typist. I’d watch the images on the big TV. Assassin’s Creed captivated me… renaissance Florence never looked better. My favourite bit was when the main character climbed high on a parapet or spire to gain and eagle’s eye view of the city. To return to street level he would launch himself into space, hurtling earthwards to land in a cart full of hay. The boy said it was called ‘The Leap of Faith’. Would you do that? Probably not, I said. Hay is quite spiky.
He’s at the same uni now, though the Union Building is fenced off, awaiting demolition. I feel sad about that. The Undergrad lounge where I first witnessed Dungeons and Dragons being played, the cafeteria where you could get a cup of almost drinkable coffee for twenty cents, the fourth floor snooker club with its intimidatingly large tables and hushed atmosphere. Now the cream brick edifice looks pale and anxious, expecting the wreckers any day. A bit like retirement. Cracks, wear and tear, pointless memories; life shrinking, structured only by medical appointments and the activities of others. Waiting for the inevitable. The most exciting part of the day is when he shares some of a history or literature lecture over dinner. Life has shrivelled, though I’m not altogether sad about that. What’s out there now? To find out would take a leap of faith.