Amalaya's Croft

Amalaya sat rocking side to side, needing to use the toilet but refusing to move from her spot at her desk.  Quickly navigating the keys on her laptop, she was incredibly close to finishing the Pac-Man computer game she was playing.  She normally preferred the latest multiplayer console games where she could play against others online late into the night, but Namco had just released the new Pac Match Party for the game’s 30th anniversary.  At 20, Amalaya knew about the original Pac-Man but had never played it before.  Out of curiosity she had decided to download the new release that morning and was still playing by dinner time.  She had reached level 26 of 30.

The ‘80s-style sound of the game came beeping out of the laptop, the pace getting quicker and quicker as she progressed through each level.  ‘Dammit,’ she cursed, realising that as the beeping noise hastened, the more anxious she felt, and the more she needed to go to the toilet.  But Amalaya lived strictly by a gamers’ code - to discount the pause function.  A game had to be finished in one play.

‘In the dark, alone in your room, playing games all night swearing.  You like a teenage boy what’s wrong with you?’  Kalamn’s head peered in from the bedroom door and then a bright light suddenly flooded her room as he walked in and flicked the light switch on the wall.  Aside from the pink walls it looked exactly like a teenage boy’s room - with an unmade bed in the corner, plain clothes strewn on the floor amongst a sea of game disks, a disorganised book case, and a small desk balancing three computer screens, two Playstation consoles and a laptop.

‘Turn it off I can’t see,’ Amalaya demanded, still shuffling in her chair, her eyes now squinting at the screen.  Her older brother had just turned up for the weekly Sunday night family dinner, and until now she hadn’t noticed the smell of barbecued chicken coming from the kitchen downstairs.  Amalaya’s stomach started to growl and she was getting more impatient.  Level 27.

Kalamn sank onto the bed beside her desk as the pace of the game’s beeping sound quickened into the next level.  Amalaya leaned further forward, intensely fixated with the little 13-inch screen.  ‘Why are you dressed up so fancy, you got a date or something?’ Amalaya asked, furiously tapping the keys on her laptop.

‘You’d do well for a date.  Just come from work, we got a new uniform.’  Kalamn started shuffling through the console games at the foot of Amalaya’s bed. ‘What you playing?’ he asked.  Amalaya swayed in concentrated silence, resisting the urge to correct her brother’s sentences.

Kalamn had given Amalaya her first game back in 1992 when she was 12.  It was Tomb Raider III, a hand-me-down she played non-stop on her brother’s Playstation for three weeks before claiming her first victory.  Over the last eight years she had amassed a gaming collection that filled her room – spilling out of her desk drawers, lining her bookcase next to copies of gaming magazines, and covering her bedroom floor.  She was now racing through her university homework most afternoons to spend her nights in darkness, playing games online against strangers in other cities.

‘How did you get this?’ Kalamn asked, picking up a disk from the floor with Lara Croft scribbled on it in red marker.  He had moved on from gaming when he was 16 and had dedicated the last six years working with their father in the family’s minicab business, but he could still appreciate a pre-release when he saw one.

‘Yeah, Guardian of Light.  Burned it off Joon.  Don’t break it, it’s not out yet’.  Level 28.

‘So you talk to this Joon dude face-to-face hey!  In the daylight?  Bet that’s a highlight of your week.’ Kalamn started spinning the disk around his right middle finger.

‘Funny, ass face,’ Amalaya tried to ignore her brother’s heckling.  It was nothing new, she’d heard it all before.

At first her father, mother and aunt encouraged her newfound hobby.  At 12 they felt more comfortable with her playing games at home than sneaking out with older boys like some of the other girls in the neighbourhood.  But six years after her first Tomb Raider victory Amalaya, at 18, was getting even more wrapped up in her games.  That’s when her parents and aunt started to worry, they were concerned she’d become a social recluse.  For the last two years they were doing what they’d never dreamed possible: encouraging her to ‘Go out and meet boys’.  Their encouragement was always met with a polite nod but a blank stare.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ Aunt Evari called up the stairs to the sound of clattering crockery.  Neither of them got up and Amalaya continued her game, rocking, fingers flying across the keyboard.

‘Auntie wants to do an intervention, she thinks you’re agro-phobic and won’t ever find a boyfriend,’ said Kalamn.

‘A-gora-phobic you mean?’ Amalaya asked raising an eyebrow.  Although she could appreciate her aunt’s unease; besides going to class the person she saw the most was Joon, and they didn’t catch up a lot in person.  Most of her interaction was online.  Level 29.

‘Are you a lesbian?’ Kalamn asked, now spinning the disk on his finger in time with the beeps from the laptop.  With Amalaya swaying in her chair and Kalamn spinning the disk, it seemed as if the whole room was moving to the beeping sound of the game.

‘Are you a lesbian?’ Amalaya shot back, eyes never leaving the screen.  She doubted he was being sarcastic.

Getting bored, Kalamn threw the Lara Croft disk back onto the floor and it landed with a hard thud on top of another disk.

‘Joon and I helped to write some of that, I said don’t break it.’

‘No way!’ Kalamn said, impressed.  His younger sister was studying for a Bachelor of Science in Game Development, but like their parents and aunt he hadn’t thought it would do her any good.  He was starting to realise that perhaps they were wrong.  Amalaya had just spent the summer holidays doing an internship with Joon at Sony.  Her temporary office pass was swinging on the back of her chair in sync with her rocking, the words Junior Playstation Games Developer in big black font underneath her photo.

Suddenly the beeping laptop went quiet.  Amalaya stopped her urgent swaying in her chair and pushed the laptop aside.  Kalamn looked up.  Shooting to her feet Amalaya made a dash for the door.  Pausing briefly to switch the light off, she looked over her shoulder and said, ‘I don’t need intervention’.  Leaving Kalamn sitting on the bed in the glow of her laptop screen, she ran down the hall towards the bathroom and yelled back, ‘Tell Auntie that your ‘lesbian’ sis has just started getting paid to review games for two magazines, starting with 500 dollars for Pac-Man!’  The door of the bathroom slammed shut with a bang.

Kalamn stood up from the bed and carefully dodged the Lara Croft disk as he moved towards the door.  Before walking out of his sister’s bedroom he glanced back at Amalaya’s desk.  Next to copies of Edge and gamesTM magazines the laptop screen flashed bright yellow letters.  Level 30.