Memories and Fears

Before I crack on with this post, another in my long line of Observations, I would like to give a follow up to my Anxiety post. To all those who may be concerned, please be assured that I am past the worst of it and feel much better now.
(Never underestimate the curative powers of a hug, and words of comfort, from the one you love.)

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And now, our regular scheduled programming:

An interesting thought occurred, just the other week. I was lounging in bed, more than likely reading further into The Dark Tower, when I decided I wanted to return to a very specific slice of childhood.
Those of you of a similar age, who grew up with the PlayStation 1 console, you may remember demo discs. They usually came free with gaming magazines and contained about...ten/fifteen minutes, tops, of existing games or videos of game play. I don't recall when/where/how we acquired ours, but I certainly remember playing it. Squatting in our dusty pile of PS1 games is such a demo disc.
It contains:
Demo play from PaRappa the Rapper, Kurushi and Nightmare Creatures.
Video play from Final Fantasy VII and....some surfing or boating game, I can't remember. The videos never entertained me: why watch someone else play a game, when you can just play another yourself? It didn't interest me as a child and still fails to interest me now! It, like the 90's, are little more than a fading memory.

Anyway, during that 30est. minutes of youthful nostalgia, I discovered that since childhood I had improved at Kurushi, entirely not improved at PaRappa the Rapper, and - The Point Of This Post - I was still scared by Nightmare Creatures.
Now, anyone of today's generation would read such a statement, see the game in question, then point and laugh in my face. Compared to today's titles, Nightmare Creatures is not scary. In the fifteen minute demo, you play a very pixelated character, armed with an almighty fighting staff, who is attacked by several equally pixelated monsters. These include zombies, werewolves and gargoyles. Their mechanics work like a lot of old games; their movements aren't smooth, during attacks they switch between swinging their arms or standing still, and they come equipped with three sound effects at best.
Compare that with recent horror game Alien: Isolation. The Xenomorph looks, sounds and moves like its film counterpart, and it is so cleverly programmed, it never does the exact same thing per game. It doesn't follow a set route or set of instructions - in short, you can't cheat your way around it.
Now, Alien Isolation also scared me, I won't deny that for a second. But what Alien didn't do, which Nightmare Creatures did, was have me playing in a heightened state of uncomfortable tension. The only way I can really describe it is like a full-body itch, or my skin crawling; despite the fact I was over a decade older, had played/seen/read tonnes of other scary texts, I was uncomfortable and didn't like that I was playing it again.

And I wonder if this is an example of fear linked to memory. I've seen a video around this, theorising that "if you take a memory, attach it to an emotion, it burns in your memory and you remember it forever." This is why I can remember countless joy-inducing Christmases, devastating losses in the family, and every nightmare I've ever had - whereas boring, day-to-day activities like school and college might as well be in someone else's head.
As a child, I was terrified of Nightmare Creatures - regardless that our "copy" of it only lasted twenty minutes maximum. If my brother was ever playing it, I had to leave the room. Because, to my 7/8/9/10 year old self, it wasn't just a clump of cloudy pixels fighting a different cloudy clump. It was a man, left abandoned and alone, armed with a stick and fighting off a terrifying werewolf, with claws and teeth bigger than his head. When you're a kid, you don't care about shoddy special effects or less-than-impressive graphics. Between the game dynamics and your imagination, you create the fear.

(Sometimes it's not just kids. Thanks to Jaws, a lot of people got scared by a big rubber shark............including me!)

Had I played Nightmare for the first time recently, I was have immediately dismissed it, switched onto something "actually" scary like Evil Within, Resident Evil or BioShock.
But because I had that childhood fear of it built into the base level of my brain, Nightmare Creatures created in me a level of tension and discomfort that the above titles never quite achieved.

So if you're ever in the mood for a proper fear-fest this Halloween, root around in your childhood memories and dig out what used to put you on edge in your infant years. Just imagine it:
October 31st. Everyone's out watching IT or Insidious or The Human Centipede.
And then there's me.
All the lights off.
Wrapped up in blankets.
About to watch The Black Cauldron.
Cos let's be honest here, no child was fully prepared for that film!

Have a good one

=]

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It's just occurred to me I "sort of" covered this topic over four years ago, back in January 2013. With a different spin on it, however. To anyone interested, have a link!

Memory & Maturity

Cars, trains, dinosaurs. They’re all in everyone’s childhood at some point.

When I was young, I owned a lot of Thomas the Tank Engine toys. One, of the many, was a figurine of the Fat Controller character. Suited, top hatted, able to sit but didn’t bend at the elbows or knees and about the size of an adult’s pinkie finger.

My brother meanwhile, six years my elder, had a Hornby trainset set complete with engine, carriages and a train station platform. Its limited amount of track subjected the unfortunate passengers to a circuitous – even repetitive – route. Both brothers cherished their toys but only I was the envious one. No matter how much track I had for Thomas the Tank Engine, no matter how many route combinations I concocted with smatterings of Brio and LEGO, my brother’s trains moved on their own, not forced into submission under my small hands. They were alive and so they were superior.

Hence my excitement, should my brother offer a train ride to my Fat Controller figurine. Not taking into account the Fat Controller was taller than the carriage itself and to fit inside either the train would need bits removed, or he would. I would hand over the Fat Controller and my brother would say he, the Fat Controller, just needed to go down the platform stairs and onto the train. At this point I am asked to look away while my brother arranged the finest compartment, not to look back until I am permitted.

The train would pull out of the station at the start of its short journey which could only ever bring it back to the point at which it began. My eyes followed it keenly, watching for even the slightest glimpse of my Fat Controller toy, peering out of the window. I would always ask “Where is he?” and would always be answered “At the front, behind the curtains.” Sometimes there’d be an addition of “with his feet up” or “enjoying the journey” but always in first class, behind the curtains. My brother wouldn’t dare ask “You can see him, can’t you?” Illusions hang by a thin thread, after all. 

The Fat Controller would enjoy a few circuits, ten at best. My brother was trying to capture and keep the attention span of a child, after all. I would look away again for the Fat Controller to disembark and looked back to have him returned to me. Smiling, as always. Thus I would return across the landing to my own small world, one rather more chaotic than the one behind, and release the Fat Controller back into an environment more his size and literally built with him in mind.

Nearly twenty years have passed. The Hornby set is in my brother’s old cupboard, gathering dust and no doubt heading past the point of actually working. The same can be said in regards to my Thomas the Tank Engine paraphernalia, now stored in its new location of a dustier, mustier attic. My childhood memories are growing mouldy. All I have left are these partially recollected stories and the time to think, for the this is the first time between then and now that I have remembered this occurrence.

For instance, I have had the opportunity to ponder just how my brother kept the Fat Controller hidden from me. Initial ideas suggested the technique was to stow the Fat Controller underneath the hollow, plastic train station platform. I compliment my brother’s ability to lift up the platform and hide the Fat Controller quickly and quietly.

However even that could be over-complicating things. The simple fact of the matter is the Fat Controller could have been in a pocket or behind my brother’s back, somewhere easy to reach but unseen to my naive eyes.

And I believed. With every cell of my tiny, untarnished brain I believed my oversized and impossible toy was inside that train, enjoying a ride which wasn’t manual, wasn’t overshadowed or roughened by my small hand pushing him along. Part of me still wants to believe it: “in first class, behind the curtains.” It is cruel and unnecessary to think and realise the truth, but the path to adulthood is lined with these ugly revelations. Such as the fact my favourite toy was not having fun and in a new life of luxury, however briefly. He was alone, in the dark, hidden from view. Not sipping drinks with the world whizzing past the windows, instead lying and waiting for the daylight to come back, somewhere between both the world he knew and the one he was promised.

It is a sad moment when we grow old enough to peer over the walls of lies our elders built for us, regardless of any good intentions which went into the foundations. The Easter Bunny isn’t real. There is no Tooth Fairy. So many letters to Santa lost in the mail. Maturity is learning that whimsy and wonder is not hidden behind the curtains in first class. Wonder is not something which will only appear as soon as the eyes are closed or the head is turned.

Instead, we learn something better. We learn that wonder is a commodity, which our parents and siblings created and sold to us: their willing and gullible audience. They were in control, they were in the know. But by cycle of the generations, the responsibility drops a level and falls to us. Now we get to tell the stories, choose the truths and build beliefs. The days are over when we sat with wide eyes, enraptured, taking our elders’ words as gospel. Now the words are our own.

Now, it’s our turn.