A Techno Carol (with Apologies to Charles Dickens) - A Story in Five Parts

Part II:

It was a wonderful rest. Jimmy could not remember the last time he slept that well…

“Beep, beep…”

That must have been his Android…or tablet? He never used the alarm on his smartwatch or desktop, so he must have…

“Beep, beep…”

Pretty loud, too… He looked over at his nightstand and almost fell off the bed.

There was…something right beside him that he could not make out too clearly. Rubbing his eyes, he forced himself to focus…and stop dreaming.

It was a Space Invader. It was bouncing up and down, all purplish and in an 8-bit format.

“Hello, Jimmy! Wake up, wake up…!”

Jimmy looked past him at the window. Still dark, but plenty of moonlight. Still his room, but…

Almost everything was gone.

“I’m still dreaming…”

“No, no, no!” The thing began jumping, or bouncing, up and down. “Not a chance! This is your big day! Remember what Alan told you?”

He was not really hearing the Invader as he got up and ran around the room. All of his tech was gone and replaced with…?

A Commodore 64; a Walkman (orange-cushioned headphones included); a boombox (his dad told him all about his as a kid). And that was it…

Was he going insane?

“What…?”

“I’m the ghost!”

He turned on the thing and wanted to punch it…and he did.

Jimmy ate some carpet as he flew past it and hit the ground.

“Hey, kid. I told you I’m a ghost! I’m here to help you.”

The embarrassment was not as painful as his face. He sat on his bed and rubbed his chin.

“Why me?”

“Really, I don’t know. They just said that a kid needed our help.”

“A ghost? Like ‘the ghost of Christmas past’? I told your…buddy I saw the movie. I know the story.”

The purple thing paused and remained still for a moment.

“Well, not exactly that kind of ghost. This is a little different. I have a different name…and title.”

Jimmy just wanted to go back to sleep, but he wanted to know why this was happening to him.

“Okay, okay. Name?”

“Squid!” The 8-bit Invader began to bounce again. “I hope to be a Crab or even an Octopus one day!”

“Of course.” He stood up. “And you aren’t a ghost of Christmas past?”

“Ha, ha! Heck no…” The thing moved closer to him. “I’m the ghost of technology past.”

Jimmy really did not know what to say.

“Great…”

“Great! Now, let’s get going! You’re going to love this!”

Squid touched him and he felt a little buzz in his skin.

“Hey! What did you do to me?”

“Take a look!” Was that Invader smiling?

Jimmy saw his reflection in the mirror on his nightstand, and was grateful that he still thought he was in a dream.

He was also an 8-bit character.

From what he could remember, this was something between Q-Bert and Mario. His dad still had his old systems and Jimmy remember playing with the old joysticks and cartridges. He knew how to play with them. He knew that this had to be a dream.

“And…I’m a character.”

“Best way to travel. Let’s go.”

Jimmy turned, noting that the whole room seemed to glow stronger than the moonlight. “Where…?”

“To the past!” And they both disappeared with a very loud “Zap!”

*

*

At first, Jimmy was sure there was something wrong with his eyesight. It must have affected him, being touched by the Invader and then flying to wherever they were now. But he soon had his vision adjusted as he stared ahead.

They were looking through some pretty thick glass.

He reached out and touched it. Yup, definitely glass.

“Here we are!”

Squid was bouncing excitedly.

“Where is here?”

“The first game!” He circled around Jimmy, making him a little dizzy. “This is Pong!”

Jimmy looked over to his left and saw a line and a small ball bounce back very near their heads. He had to duck.

“Hey, don’t worry… We aren’t really here. I made you a ghost like me.”

“Great.”

He could see the ball head back after it bounced off a line to his left and head back to the other side. Great… Jimmy knew the game, but had only played it once when his dad showed him how to build his own version.

His dad…

He wondered if this dream was all related to the way he behaved that day. It must have been some sort of mental punishment.

“Look up.” Squid pointed an antenna up to the glass.

Jimmy looked up and felt a little confused.

The face was so familiar; it was someone he knew…

“My dad?”

“Your dad. He used to come here when he was a little boy and play this game whenever he could…”

“But where…?”

“The Larsen Arcade. It opened in his neighbourhood when he was a boy and he…oh, wait…” Squid stopped bouncing and looked serious. Jimmy noted this and saw why.

His father, the boy in front of him, was now surrounded by some older kids.

“Hey, Puke!”

“Luke…”

“Oh, yeah, right. Puke. You think you can play?”

“I play when I can…”

“Yeah, yeah. Playing with yourself…” The others laughed. His dad only focused on the one kid who was taller than him and dominated the screen. Long hair and a lot of acne about to sprout on his face made him seem too old for his victim. “You can’t beat me.”

Dead silence on that. Jimmy could only hear the occasional beep from another machine (sounded like pinball).

“You play me.”

“Okay.”

The older kid waited for someone to hand him change for a machine – was he their boss – and said, “Get bent!”

So, he watched his dad go at it. A part of him wanted to look away, but he couldn’t… And he was glad he kept staring.

His dad was…winning.

To be honest, the kid in front of him was doing something Jimmy never thought possible: he was playing a video game and actually winning against someone. It was glorious. It was fantastic. He almost shouted at him as he said it.

“Dad…”

And then the older kid hit him.

It was a hard slap and he saw that his dad was no longer standing. Jimmy pounded on the screen and could not look away.

“Lucky Puke. All you are… Lucky…” The kids walked off, following the older one with laughs and stares.

His father got up, wiped himself off and…smiled.

Jimmy tried not to cry, but failed.

“Two more stops, kid.”

Jimmy barely heard the zap this time.

*

There was another screen in front of them, but this time it seemed to be angled.

Right, right… Jimmy knew that they were back in an arcade, but this time they were on a newer machine.

“Welcome to the eighties!”

Squid looked excited…and a little bit different now.

“What happened to you?”

“Oh, I’m a Crab now! This is all going really well and I think I may make it all the way. And look around you…”

He did, and recognized it.

“Space Invaders?”

“My turf! So glad that your parents loved this one!”

Jimmy heard it, but did not believe it.

“My…parents…?”

“Yeah, look!” Squid pointed at the screen.

It was the inside of an arcade – he could see “Larsen’s” written on a wall in large exaggerated swoops and swirls – and the noise was a little bit louder with all the additional machines.

And his dad was back.

He was taller now, with more hair swept back from his head. A little acne, and…was that the slightest hint of a mustache (Jimmy laughed at this)?

He was playing again, this time he seemed a little tired…or sad?

“What’s going on this time, Crab?”

“Your dad is still at it, going to the same arcade, going to the same mall, and doing the same things. But he is still on his own. Being good with schoolwork and getting good grades has not made him popular, so he keeps playing these games. We are his lifeblood!”

Jimmy tried not to think too much about that. The idea that his dad only had video games in his life seemed sad, and pathetic.

“But this is a very important day for him!”

“Oh…great. And why?”

“Look again, kid!”

A girl was walking with her friends behind his dad and turned to stare at the screen.

“You’re good.”

The group turned on her words (another leader, Jimmy thought). But they were not as kind:

“Seriously? This one?”

“Worst geek at our school…”

“I’m hungry.”

But this girl ignored them all and walked over to him.

Jimmy blushed.

“Mom…”

“Yeah, that’s her. They met in an arcade after school one day. Strange thing is that they did not go to the same school. And they did not really have much in common…except the games.” Crab was dodging their shots, even though he was probably still a ghost to the players.

“I’m okay.”

“No, no… I play at home and you got pretty far on this.”

“You play… You have your own system?”

“Atari”

“Wow, I… I’m saving for a computer. My parents said I could not get one just for games.”

“Sounds like my parents, except they did not bother to let me save up for it.”

And they both laughed.

“Wanna play?”

And that was it. They were both smiling and staring at the screen as they fired, moved, posed and entered their scores (Jimmy forgot you could do that). It was a beautiful scene…

And then it happened.

“Hey, Puke!”

Jimmy could not believe it. Same kid, now older, fatter and – oh, why not say it – uglier than before. He did not have the same group of kids around.

His dad did not speak.

“Hey…Puke…”

“I’m sorry, are you talking to yourself or is that what people do when you show up?”

Jimmy laughed so hard he almost fell over. His mom was eyeballing the bully and his dad was trying not to laugh too hard.

“Who’s the chick? You playing with girls now?”

“Better than playing with yourself, Bigfoot.”

The bully was staring hard at her. There was some attention from the rest of the arcade, but he looked as if he just shrank in front of the entire crowd.

“Yeah, yeah… You and Puke love your game. Buttheads…” He slinked away.

Jimmy was laughing and trying not to cry again.

“Impressive.”

“Thanks. Who the hell was that, anyway?”

“Some jerk I have had to deal with since…well, forever.”

“Well, he can crawl into a hole in the ground and choke.”

“Yeah… Oh, I’m Luke.”

“Laura.”

There was a pause, and they both burst out laughing and said the same thing.

“Luke and Laura?”

His mom was the first to say it.

“Are we on that TV show?”

“Maybe. My mom watches it all the time.”

“Mine too.”

“Yeah.”

And then they looked at each other for a moment before his mother put another quarter into the machine. Jimmy wondered what show it was.

“Okay, kid. Let’s go.”

“What, now?”

“One more stop.”

And there was another buzz and zap…

*

Where was this? The screen in front of them was now concave and it was harder to focus on what was happening.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, this is college. Your mom and dad went to the same school. Your dad studied programming and your mother was in a business program. This is the first lab developed just for the Internet. All those early nineties newsgroups and…”

Crab was cut off by a very loud and annoying whirr of sound.

“What was that?”

“That was how they connected to each other. Phone lines and modems. Hope that was not too loud. But look…”

There was Jimmy’s dad again, staring hard at the screen as he worked on some coding (he guessed that was what it was; he never really cared that much about the different languages). It was pretty late in the day – he could see the time in the corner next to them – and his mother…

She was walking slowly up to him.

“Boo!”

“Ah! You… Are you crazy?”

“Yes, yes, I am.”

“Yes, you are.”

Now, watching his parents make out made him a little uncomfortable, but also…happy. They seemed to be different people.

“Is it working?”

“I think so. Some bug in it, but the program ran well before… Just not sure what happened.”

“You’ll get it. You got it.”

“I will?”

“Yup.”

And his mother grabbed a chair, hugged his dad, and watched him adjust the code.

“Your dad was working on a program to help students who were having trouble with…coding. Interesting problem that needed a solution.” Crab looked over the lines passing them both as the cursor moved across the screen. “He’d finish it just before graduating, sell it to a company, and use that money to pay for their wedding and their first home. He really used the tech around him to help others and his own family.”

Jimmy was impressed. All that time and he never knew what his dad got up to…

“And…Yes!” Crab glowed for a moment and changed. “Octopus!”

“Glad you made it.”

“All because of you. Thanks, kid. And I hope the next guy is helpful.”

Jimmy almost forgot about the story.

“Oh, right. Yeah. Well…”

“See you, kid! And don’t forget to play some of us old school games one day… It would really be appreciated.”

And with that, there was one final buzz that made it all disappear.

*

*

Thank you for reading!

If you liked this, you can add your Insights, Comment, leave a Heart, Tip, Pledge, or Subscribe. I will appreciate any support you have shown for my work.

You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

Give it a look...