The first thing I remember is the music. It was the first time I had ever heard music, and the vibrations of those pure sounds gave me a feeling of being lifted up to somewhere, being somewhere higher than I had ever been before. I am not aware if OutScreeners remember the first time they hear music, but it has come to my attention that you do not remember much of your youth, so i suspect that most of you do not. With me though, whenever i hear the music from Tetris, I feel calm and relaxed and want to huddle up beside an arrangement of blocks.
The second thing i became aware of was what surrounded me. I was inside the body of a Tetris block, and it made him/her ill. (From now on I shall call it a 'him' because he was a grumpy and slovenly fellow.)
'Eurgh, what's inside me?'
Another, kinder, gentler tetris block who was attached to the falling square of four blocks replied to him.
'Woah, you've got a Pong Ball inside you! I've always wanted a Pong Ball inside me! What's it feel like?'
'Uncomfortable.'
'I've heard stories of this before. Blocks end up with Pong Ball's inside them, and it's up to he Pong Ball to survive before he can reach his salvation. There's a whole massive history of it.'
'What do you mean survive?'
'Well, when you die, you reappear as a block at the top of the screen don't you?'
'Yes.'
'Well, that's not what happens with Pong Balls, they have to survive in other computer games and then return to their own. They're very primitive, quite a few pixels away from our stage of evolution.'
The third block now said in a low voice
'You're in grave trouble.'
'Why?'
'If that Pong Ball doesn't survive, then neither will you.'
The four blocks and I hit a whole community of blocks at this point, thudding onto irritated neigbours whose electromagnetic voices drowned each other's out. i could just about still hear the conversation of my birthblock, but could not understand any of it. It was not until recently that i have been able to translate the music of beeps and waves that it appeared to me into something comprehensible. I was, however, entirely aware that there was tension between the four. My possessor was obviously angry. The historian's mood had changed from glee to regret. The informative third block was sombre all through. The fourth block was asleep.
Luckily enough, the gamer was tired and unable to play against the increasing speed of the game. He was a young boy, about fifteen, wearing a Thunderbird 2 cardigan that his grandma had knitted from him. I would see him again, later in life, without the cardigan. But, for the moment, my life was not at risk.
As the four blocks and I sat four rows up from the bottom of the screen, the historian taught me to speak functionally. Not subject, verb, object, but the Screener's equivalent. 'I am a Pong Ball', 'I must survive', 'I will die unless...'
That word, unless, was where the historian's problem. She wanted to help me in case I came across any problems on my travels, but, given the limited period of time she had to teach me, could not decide which perils it was best to warn me against. Should she tell me about the possibility of exploding in Bomberman? Should she tell me what to do if I was caught in Super Mario Land? She realised that the more time she spent thinking about what she could teach me, the less time she had to teach, and so quickly decided to teach me how to avoid general obstacles in computer games. 'I will die unless...
'...you stop me from falling.'
'...you stop me from exploding.'
'...you stop me from being shot.'
This was all happening while the OutScreener was trying desperately to combat the blocks at the top of the screen. Those three instructions were the only ones she gave me before the OutScreener finally lost the struggle. I then dissappeared, never to see the block I inhabited again, except in my infinite memory; and never to see that kind and helpful historian block again, although I hope she lives on, or, if not, that she lived a happy life.
With only the three phrases that she had taught me to use as instruments of survival, i hoped that the next game I entered would involve falling, exploding or being shot.
