A Faded Razor
Sunday, 30 November 2008.
It’s amazing how time dulls the emotions, numbing their once-powerful grip over us into the barest glimmer of a tickle. Two things that happened yesterday, within ten minutes of each other, reminded me of that fact.
The first of those two was a remarkable find: a used copy of Oni, sitting neglected and dusty on a shelf with a $5.00 price tag. While the game received poor reviews when it was released, it was a big piece of my childhood that I had forgotten: I anxiously awaited this game for years, religiously checking the website weekly for any gem of new information or artwork. When the game came out, I played (and enjoyed) the demo, but not having any money at my age, never did play the full game.
But upon seeing the cover, a sickening wave of nostalgia flooded over me, and I bought it on the spot without a second thought. When I got home and popped the CD into the drive, I was instantly transported back to a time where the N64 was high technology and life was simpler. Playing the game is like putting an ellipsis on my childhood—profound and open-ended.
The second event was running into someone I hadn’t seen in eight years—the girl I was enamored with in junior high school, but who had left the school and my life. Despite my feelings for her then, I didn’t even recognize her yesterday until her name was given to me. The subsequent chatter, while friendly, was awkward and shallow—I'm very, very different than the person I was in junior high, and if I barely recognize myself back then, then this person in front of me was practically a stranger: a ghost from a past life, with nothing in common but the now-faint memory of what was. After a brief conversation, we parted ways, probably never to meet again (for the second time).
It is interesting to me how an old video game stirred and revived ancient feelings within me, burning them brightly and causing my veins to surge with them once again, but a cute brunette who had a noticeably stronger effect on my emotions around that same time brought back nothing today.
I'm not entirely sure what that means.
