Tetris
First
published in Yomimono
They are brothers,
older and younger: Christopher and John.
Christopher is handsome and athletic, and touchingly severe in his rationalism. He believes in the world as
it is generally taken to be. When he is bored, he plays Tetris, a video game in which puzzle pieces fall from
the top of the screen and, with his dexterous assistance, interlock precisely with others on the bottom and
disappear. At odd moments during the day, puzzle pieces unexpectedly detach from the top of his mind and drift
slowly to its base, into the perfect spaces which always lie in wait. At such times he is filled with a sense
of well-being, of completion -- of fit and of fitness. Christopher has been the goalie on the soccer team their
father coaches, and whenever John is allowed out of the house, the boys practice in the back yard. Chris
catches the ball neatly; it falls with a whisper into his hands.
John on the other hand, is never bored, and he dislikes video games. When he plays Tetris, the screen fills
from the bottom with row after row of unconjoined parts. He always waits too long for a particular piece,
usually a long, slender one that could be slipped down the side to complete five rows at once.
Christopher stands in the sun, the soccer ball bouncing on the tips of his flexing fingers, its black and
white patches, spinning, spinning. "There are studies which show that when the ball is just twelve inches out
of my hands, you can calculate its trajectory and position yourself accordingly." He says this as lightly as
he can, but his voice breaks nonetheless. He has been teaching John to tend goal for their father's team.
At first John darts around the yard, wildly and always in vain; later, winded and spent, he watches the ball
sail over his head. He knows that the path it traces is the upper part of an ellipse, its base sunken into
the earth; but between the launch and the landing, it is for him an ellipsis, one he can never fill in.
John is a heavy boy and awkward, and in no way winning. Certainly his favored brother is part of the meanness
of life, part of the reason that John has always wanted to believe he is something other than what he appears
to be. Perhaps a vase.
In fact, the boys' father collects exquisite antique vases from around the world. A Chinese vase which John
particularly admired once stood on the same hall table where he drops his backpack every day after school.
It was made of onyx and delicately incised with gold.
"If you tell Dad the truth about the vase, it will be easier in the end," says Christopher.
John knows this it be true about the vase, but he can't bring himself to take his brother's advice. With
appropriate and becoming reluctance, Christopher informs his father of what has happened, and John is restricted
to his room for two weeks.
All John's sentences are served consecutively, so the two weeks are added to penalties incurred for other recent
infractions. His confinement will now extend to nearly the end of the soccer
season; he smiles. Christopher
points out that under the circumstances, it's lucky for John they have Nintendo in their room. John tells him
he feels undeserving of such luck, but Chris has been far too fortunate in his dealings with the world to have
felt any need for a sense of irony.
Their father buys Tetris II, and now from the top of the screen fall --
not monochrome pieces varying only in
shape -- but interconnected squares of different colors. There's no need to complete rows
now; when just three
blocks of the same color are lined up, either down or across, they burst into little puffs and disappear.
Christopher's life remains much the same, only now, all day long, trios of colored squares explode satisfyingly
in his mind. But John's life alters forever; he notices for the first time that his brother's eyes are the
improbable blue of a video screen; behind them everything must
connect -- secured by a staunch, manly handshake
-- clasped, locked and affirmed. As a direct though inexplicable result, John begins to wonder,
to speculate, with a wild clarity, a weird precision.
Is he, John, composed of all the things which do not connect up: lost library books, missed foul shots,
unmatched socks, broken vases? If the pieces were suddenly to join, might they and he disappear? Or perhaps
(his boy's heart beats faster!) he reclines on those pieces, his weight borne on the jagged ones, a blood
offering, a fresh gory snack for a spoiled god, rising higher and higher within the electric blue epithelium
of a vast game, a dream machine, the only game in town that will get you out of town.
John sleeps a lot and reads. His mind wanders, collecting and recollecting: stray things, frayed things,
abandoned theories, odd facts, unlikely stories. He is a kind of scientist, he thinks, noting phenomenon not
accounted for in any orthodox scheme. When he bothers to look down from his nest (his
eyrie! -- his bed of thorns,
bed of roses -- his bier!) the view is not half bad and is improving all the time. He peers over the edge.
The soccer players sweep across the field like leaves skittering and swirling in an empty lot. He waves to the
player he thinks is his brother, but Christopher doesn't wave back, if indeed it is he. No one even looks up.
John watches the ball arc upward, then fall away, landing exactly where he expects. The trajectory of the ball
is clear from this height; he is correctly positioned at last.
| |
|
|
