CHAPTER 11: AN INNOCENT REGRET

Pokémon is my absolute favorite game. I have no idea why. Considering that the games have been progressively worse in the last few years I have should move on really, but it still is my absolute favorite. The back and forth the game offers is absolutely amazing not to mention the various ways you can actually play that game. I mean look up YouTube! There’s like a hundred different kinds of ways to play that game, it’s stupid!

There’s many things I love about that game, tons! But the main reason why, is because it was the first game I ever saw. I was absolutely smitten. I never forget the day I first saw that game and I was here.

Here I was. Before me was the six year version of me hanging on the window. I remember that day I could barely see through to the room. My head resting on the lintel and my little arms supporting my little body.

“Is that?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s the kid you from before” Jeffry interrupted. We both looked at the boy who did care what so ever about us. Perhaps he didn’t even see us.

“You remember right?” Jeffry added.

“Of course, Pokémon yellow.”

Pikachu is the mascot of Pokémon and to play with the Pokémon and obviously the follow animation along with that and the brock gym. The challenge was something else.  I perfectly remember the red carpet inside the room, the green and blue sofas lined right along the walls. The portrait of the late king and queen on the wall. The huge CRT TV on one end of the room placed on the black table covered with a white see through cloth. Right before the window through which I peaked, a white CRT monitored computer. The boy playing the game was barely a few years older than the young me. Before him was a plate of freshly fried prawn and an orange juice of some brand.

He played Pokémon yellow on the full screen on visual boy advanced emulator. Back then the pixels looked surprisingly good even in full screen.

“This is possibly my oldest memory”

“Yeah I think so” Jeffry talked almost as casually as me.

“So why are we here? To remember that I was a gamer?”

“Dude! No!” Jeffry was first amused then disappointed.

“What then? What’s the point of this?”  I asked walking, maneuvering my way avoiding the wet clothes hung around. The boy didn’t see us. Jeffry followed me but he was clumsy and struck a few clothes and even an underwear, a few underpants actually.

No I didn’t!

YES YOU DID!

NO

Shut up!

Jeffry it’s my story! You shut up!

“No seriously why are we here?” I asked irritated “I’m pretty sure I end up watching almost half an hour more of awful gameplay.”

I walked to the window.

“JUST train Pikachu to level 20 for Slam and keep grinding till you win, dumbass!” I shouted but the boy inside didn’t listen.

“You remember what happened after this right?” Jeffry asked.

The woman inside shut the curtains. You know what stays with you more than your oldest memory?

Your oldest regret. The kid me jumped off the wall and rushed back into the garage.

“Come on” Jeffry said as he followed the child back through the green gate.

I started as well. The garage was dark and poorly lit and the floor was filled with water that spilled out of the poorly furnished toilets at the end which I talked of earlier. The path in the middle was guarded by a chain gate which was always kept half open. The wide stone staircase started right after the gate.

The staircase I tell you, was dark and not the pitch black dark, it was Stephan king shining “dark” or the conjuring series dark. Just enough light to see yourself but no one else.

The first floor was very similar to that of ground floor but the rooms were a bit lesser. There were ten rooms spreading across the floor separated by a gallery that ran through the middle. There was one common toilet and one common bathroom.

My Family lived in two of these rooms. Our rooms were attached in a sense, as even though both of these rooms opened separately into the gallery they had a common door that connected them as well.

As I climbed the steps and headed towards the room. Outside the door I could see the young me peeping inside the room. The both of us stood behind the boy neither willing to go inside.

“I remember what happened”

There are only a few things you can never forget from your childhood.

The day you dookied your pants for the first time since learning to shit in the toilet.

AND.

The day you saw your mother cry.

“I can never forget, no matter how much I try. I cannot forget”

Jeffry had his hand on my shoulder, neither of us had the strength to see what the boy was peeking to.

Times were not so good for us back then, it hasn’t been long since it’s taken a turn for the better. My mother didn’t cry because she didn’t want to get me the computer, she cried because she couldn’t.

I remember not knowing how to feel that day. Earlier I had told my parents, rather argued that I wanted a computer. I was six years old I believe or smaller, but my words were daggers. Parents truly wish the world for their kids and I guess sometimes that isn’t enough. I was confused to have seen my mother cry.

Was it because of me?

I did indeed end up getting the computer but I could never help but think about the day again and again and again.

“So why are we here?”

“I don’t know, you tell me!”

“You’re the one that brought me here Jeffry”

“While that is true,” He replied as cunning as he was “you often forget that I am you”

I looked at him and found him very serious in his answer.

“So why are you here?” he asked.

Why was I here? The child me had returned inside his room where my mother would now be turning away hiding her face in her shawl before splashing herself with the bucket of water to cheer herself up.

Lacking the heart to go inside the room, we both decided to head back down into the open spaces from before. We sat down just outside the green gate from where we could see the verandah that extended out of my room.

 “I wish I could take this back, this whole time back and make sure it never happened” I started after a long silence.

“Well it did happen, it has happened. You have to understand that. We can’t take this back. It’s who we are now.”

“You’ve spent so much of your head there A. It’s time to let go of it.” Jeffry put his hand on my back “It did turn out for the better, didn’t it? We escaped it. The mediocrity. Any effect it has on us now, it’s only lingering. It’s an after taste. A burp you get after it’s all digested and ready to be thrown.”

I chuckled at this.

Jeffry got up. “Come, it’s time to go”

I looked at him and suddenly had an urge.

“Wait! there’s something I need to do” I said.

“I know” He replied.

“Aren’t you going to say something like time is precious or some shit?”

Jeffry only smiled.

I turned to the green gate. Every three feet it had bands of brown tin parts extending out of it. I had often used the gate to climb to my room when I had forgotten the key. I climbed like I had a hundred time before and reached the verandah instantly. And just as I expected the child me was there scribbling on the brick walls with his pencil.

I embraced him.

What weight this boy had, what sorrow he carried, I couldn’t imagine. All of my pain felt nothing when compared to his.  

When I let go. The boy looked at me and smiled.

“I’ll play Pokémon soon.” He added returning back to his work. “You know Pikachu learns slam at level twenty”

I smiled. “That’s a good strategy kid” I said. From the window I could see inside my parents setting up the huge CRT monitor on my one foot tall table. I didn’t stay much and climbed back down the green gate.

“Where to?” I asked.

Jeffry looked at me surprised as if I had to have known.

“Let’s take a walk” He finally said.