It's Saturday, the only day of the week where bedtime is nonexistent and we can play until the moon hangs high in the sky or the night fades into dawn.
We're not yet 10 years old and our night owl tendencies are already beginning to carve themselves into habits that would extend well into our adulthood. The room is dark, not from the late hour (it was only 5 in the evening), but from the blankets and pillows, we barred against the dying light streaming in through the windows. The only light filling the room is coming from the behemoth of a TV(flat screens were an extravagance still beyond our reach) sitting only a few inches from our faces. Blues, reds, and greens dance across our eyes and illuminate the soft curves of our cheeks not yet hollowed by the stress of adulthood and the harshness that is reality.
Empty bags of chips, candy and popcorn litter the floor, the crumbs still clinging to the stitch of our clothing because we are too absorbed in the stretching landscape unrolling before us in the screen, all endless green hills and blue skies. The music is iconic: a series of trumpets and brass echoing in the air, a piercing shrill of a piccolo and the endless beat of a snare banging away. To this day, I still find the melody slipping past my lips in a soft hum, my fingers tapping absently away to the beat whenever my mind trails off in thought.
Your fingers move deftly around the controller. My eyes are barely able to keep track of each flick of your left thumb over the analog or the right as they move from button to button. Your knuckles flexing every time you squeeze a trigger in defense or readjust your grip. I could never make my own move as fast, at least not until many years later when my hands grew larger, and the controller no longer felt foreign in my grasp. I suppose that was always why you were the puppeteer and I the mind guiding your actions.
Each temple was a challenge waiting to be conquered and I relished at the task. My excitement grew with each passing puzzle. Finally, something I could excel at. Every ice block or hidden switch was no match for me as my eyes flicked over the screen, quickly mastering the pattern in moments. When the puzzles were finished and all the keys found, you would face the boss, quickly defeating him with your nimble fingers. We were unstoppable.
But all things come to an end. The morning would come and with it, our parents. The file would be saved and the TV would be turned off, and we were forced to face the morning light weary and blinded.
