Here be Dragons
By Noo
- 1316 reads
The communication between teenage boys is a curious thing. Its unchartered waters are choppy with a deep impenetrability. It’s almost occult in its strangeness.
Forty three texts to arrange meeting up to play football in the park:
Hi
Hi
U k?
Yh. U?
Yh
Wot u doin?
Not much
Wot u doin lata?
Not much. U?
Wanna go park?
Yh. U?
K
K, the ultimate slacker abbreviation. The old ‘ok’ being way too elaborate - too extended a word - for everyday use. Thank the great God EE for limitless free text packages.
But catch my sons on video games (it won’t be hard) and something changes. There’s a richness and playfulness with language that virtual worlds bring out in them, and it's kind of wonderful. My favourite phrase at the moment – to rage quit. To walk away from a game because you’re frustrated and angry with it. Sometimes I think I’d like to rage quit life!
And then there’s the peculiar, esoteric language of the game, Minecraft. If you’ve not come across it, it’s a virtual world where you can build anything with chunky blocks, rendered in low resolution graphics. From shacks to cities, from outhouses to citadels. If you can imagine it, you can create it.
I hear my boys talking of obsidian, of the netherworld, of dragons and serpents. They’re moving between the real and virtual world like expert bilingual speakers. But for the inexpert listener, talk of PE kits and maths lessons, intermingled with the darkness consuming you in the netherworld, can be a disconcerting experience.
Describing his latest virtual building project, my younger son says, “my house is spawning monsters”. And momentarily, I wonder if mine is too. But then I think, no, it’s not. In their games, they’re learning cooperation, social conscience, conservation, how to coordinate curtains with cushions - and that can only be a good thing.
When I was reading my older son’s texts the other day (purely in the interest of writing research you understand!), I saw the following exchange:
My son – I’ve been raking up leaves in the garden
His friend – In real life?
Yes, in real life. In the real life of a hazy, autumn morning. Blue sky shimmering, stark branches silver in the frost glimmer. Freezing faces and leaf crunch under foot. The smell of the wood fire next door and the feel of the handle of the metal rake in achingly cold fingers. I looked at my sons as they were raking and saw the smiles on their faces. Despite the work and because of the real life.
Now I’m bringing this moment to you from the virtual world of writing. Maybe we’re all cartographers of language. Charting unknown waters and avoiding the dragons.
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Comments
Love it! Left me yearning
Love it! Left me yearning for the boyhood of my boys.
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Delightful! I do enjoy your
Delightful! I do enjoy your warm, wise observations, Noo - and look forward to reading more of your work.
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