Memory One

When I was younger, we lived in a little apartment in Bur Dubai. The building was once colored a bright white and was full of life. Down across from our building was an empty rocky flat where the kids would play cricket or football. The building had a sizable swimming pool with tanning beds. The pool was indoor. The elevators were silver and they used seven-segment displays. The buttons were analogue and had to be pushed in with great muscle. The last number you could press was 7, leading you to my childhood home: 702.

The apartment was vast and cozy at the same time. It was a three bedroom apartment with a large living room and dining area, separate kitchen, three bathrooms, and three bedrooms, with one having its own bathroom and walk-in closet. Before my little sister brightened our lives, the third bedroom was called a “computer room.” A fitting name, as it was dominated by a massive desk with the heavy computer and its many cables strewn about its back. The desk had shelves, holding a large printer, speakers, and many many papers.

This desk was where my love for computers was born. Limewire, BitTorrent, video game emulators, simple scripts, and so many other little hacks captivated my imagination. Living near Al Ain Centre in Bur Dubai (think of it as a mall that only sold computers) likely helped as well as I’d always visit there to buy gadgets and I’d see open computers with their guts exposed. How do these things even work?

I remember, and this is a little silly, printing a lewd picture of Christina Aguilera when I was younger at the beckoning of my friend. We didn’t understand what we found so fascinating about it. Once printed, we taped the picture to my clothes cabinet in me and my brother’s bedroom. When my mom saw the picture, she smacked me right across the face while laughing. I don’t think I was ever more confused in my life but I also laughed. Looking back at the moment now and seeing the picture, it’s hard not to see why I deserved to be smacked. Imagine having the below picture taped to a cabinet for you and your younger brother to look at. I must have been seven or eight years old at the time.

Memory Two

The computer room had, to its left, a large Sony Trinitron television. Plugged into it was a mess of cabling that came from a PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. We had them all at the time, which I acknowledge is very fortunate. That entire set-up grew from being a little Sharp television and PlayStation 1 to being the dream set-up for any young boy.

Our game library was vast and the time my brother and I spent in front of these games is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. Once, with my friends over, we played Mario Party 6. My friends didn’t care for our love of video games but we always showed off what we had anyways and forced them to play. They did love Mario Party, though. The sixth game came with a microphone and you could speak words into it to control the characters in some competitive mini-games. I don’t remember the things we’d have to do exactly but I remember getting the microphones to work being its own hassle that made for plenty of laughs.

My mother is a great chef worthy of three of her own Michelin-stars and dinner would normally be some home-cooked food. But I remember Mario Party being interrupted by a call for McDonald’s. It was a warm feeling, sitting with my brother and friends and eating burgers and fries. I remember the warm glow from the little chandeliers as our mothers sat out on the balcony, probably talking about us.

Of course, as with all play dates, our mothers stood by the door for a very long goodbye while we stood around feeling like fools. We probably could have gotten another game in.

Memory Three

My mother’s family lives in Dearborn, Michigan in the US. It’s a little town that many Arabs flocked to during the political unrest that came about from the occupation of Palestine and the civil unrest throughout some parts of the Arab world. The town is clearly American in the way it wastes space for convenience but is also clearly Arabic from the little Arabic sweet shops and bakeries that sell you manakish. They’ve even got Arabic signs!

When I was younger, WiFi was not very widespread and my grandfather’s house did not have a WiFi connection. Whenever we’d get a chance to go to one of our aunts’ houses, we’d always make sure we’d carry our PSPs with us. The PSP had an Internet browser, and in the Summer of 2006, all I wanted to read about was the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. With crap Internet signals and a lot of patience while staring at loading screens, the browser would let me read and I would devour the information. One was promised to be a behemoth of a video game console and the other was going to let me use my controller the way I’d tangibly use a bowling ball in real life to control a virtual bowling ball. That shit was the future.

Later that year, after a bit of good behavior, our father came home with a Wii and a copy of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. I’ll never forget this day. Never. I do not know what it is about this game. I do not know what it was about that day. I do not understand my attachment to this memory, but I don’t think I will ever be that innocently happy ever again.

The game, from soft beginning to triumphant end, was epic. And I mean epic. Not the epic that people use to describe a burger that tastes like all burgers. But truly epic. It was a tale that was so grand, the game could not contain it. I would get lost in the world trying to collect insects for Agatha, roaming the wide open field on my horse, breaking pots in people’s homes for that little extra bit of cash. And when I swung my arm, I swung my sword. I got to live the journey. It was the first time and the last time that I really felt technology take a leap forward. It was a moment where everything just worked together perfectly, so long as the Wii remote had living batteries in it. Every other technological change since then has only felt like an improvement, but the Wii and the experience Zelda gave me cemented in me the love for technology that I have held inside me for as long as I could remember.

After saving Hyrule and Princess Zelda over my winter break, I remember feeling hollow. Seeing the game’s credits roll, I turned away from the television to the little apartment, with a warm sunset breaking through. The orange glow cast a dim twilight glow on all the furniture and I could feel the emptiness expand within me. I was sad to let go. I felt a little older in that moment and walked outside to my father sleeping on the couch. I sat on the adjacent sofa and looked on as the sun continued to dip. The music accompanying the credits was barely audible out in the living room. But the emptiness would soon be filled with the more real parts of life. The will to graduate, start a new university life, and onward to become who I hoped would be a successful working man.