Of Tetris and Hair

It's fair to say that I didn't get on well with Laura so it was a happy day when I discovered we were to attend different secondary schools due to our living in different parishes. Laura and I were the same age, our birthdays were only a week apart but to a ten year old a weeks’ difference in age is a weapon that is yielded to win arguments. “I'm eldest, so I'm right” was often heard coming from Laura, and there was no option but to accept defeat, or pull her hair.

Laura lived about a mile away and for a number of years was the only person my age within walking distance. We both knew there was no-one else nearby to play with so each school holiday we begrudgingly went to climb trees and make rope swings together. It was a friendship based around the acceptance of the inevitable: we either played together, or played alone. Each year the summer holidays would come and go and each year we would find new places to explore where there were new adventures to be had. At the end of every holiday we would part on bad terms, knowing that our differences would be forgotten in time for the next holiday.

Every holiday brought the same, but we were both growing older and eventually something different happened. We had both celebrated our fifteenth birthday and school had closed for the summer. The hormonal system within my body had begun to go wild. I found myself wandering down the lanes towards Laura’s house. I was greeted by a pretty dark-haired young girl, with curves that I’d not noticed before.

The interweb said this girl's name is Laura too

I stuttered, I actually stuttered, and each smile and glance that came my way triggered new and exciting feelings in me. I discovered that I could now make her laugh and that with each giggle a small blush would chance across her cheeks highlighting her deep brown eyes. As we had done each year before, we found a tree and hung a rope from one of the branches to make a swing. We played closely for the first time, bumping into each other as we took it in turns to push the other higher through the air.

I started to think of Laura more each day, but it wasn't just her that I wanted: Laura had also been given a GameBoy for her birthday. She only had one game, Tetris, and she was pretty good at it, but really the game didn't matter. What came to matter was that the GameBoy was small and in order for us to both watch the game at the same time we had to be close together.

Cupid's foursy?

Watching Laura play Tetris required sitting with my head resting against hers, almost cheek to cheek. She held the GameBoy and pressed the buttons to make the blocks rotate and fall into place and I sat still to watch her games unfold. Throughout all of the games I could only think of one thing: the smell of her hair.

Laura was quite a Tetris player; she could finish the really hard levels and get to the screen where the rocket would take off. I always sat still watching her play, enjoying the warm touch of her skin, savouring her smell and wondering if one day she might make my rocket take off too. I was 15; metaphor was more blunt back then.

I wanted to grab Laura, kiss her, hold her tightly against me and look deeper into her eyes, but it never happened as I was too shy and reserved to try. After Laura tired of playing Tetris she would ask if we could go and do something else, but I would respond “Can I have one more go please?” It wasn't so much that I was desperate to play Tetris again, it was more the fact that I had to do something to avoid standing up and letting Laura see the tell-tale bulge in my trousers.

That summer holiday ended like previous years where we went our separate ways back to our separate school lives. The next time I saw Laura she had found an interest in boys much older than me, her GameBoy had been replaced by an interest in Guns'n'Roses and I was left to wander among our trees on my own.

Last days of summer?

Later in my life, at university, Tetris came back to me via a housemate who had bought a GameBoyPocket. The first thing that came into my mind when I heard the bibble sound of that GameBoy welcome screen was the smell of Laura’s hair. A smile came over me. My housemate looked at me and asked “Do you know this game?”

“I know what it smells like, yeah.”

JIMAROID, November 2003

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