This is not a game

This is not a game.

Except it is, really. It's a game made up on the spot, a game made out of random thoughts and crazy hopes and this strange, strange desire, above all else, to jump off the roof, knowing, all the while, that until all the minor details are worked out, that is the last thing we can do, at least when we're not wearing pants.

So we work them out. We learn the basics. We set up our contraptions and stand at the precipice and we hope, above all else, that we got it right...

So much talk of using games to teach, of putting concepts to this or that that the kids will play, but everyone always overlooks the bloody obvious. Why are the kids playing? What are they after? And what is so great about videogames? Beat a score, blow up a tentacle monster, hide behind buildings and toss hammers every which way, wearing, all the while, no less than six pants of power. Because that's the great part, you see. The pants. The rest is fair irrelevant. Folks just don't understand what it is to play.

So play. Climb a tree. Climb a building. Climb a pile of rocks. Fight off a nest of squirrels. That's play. This particular pile of rocks? We earnt it, we did. We fought off the squirrels! And we weren't even wearing our pants. No pants, except Jacob, but tht's Jacob for you. Doesn't get any better than this, and mum, I heard you the first time! I'm coming!

Jacob jumps, right from the top, and dares the rest of us to do the same, but he always was a little better at that than the rest of us, and he's also the only one wearing pants, so it's okay. He's justified in being a little more daring. I cut myself on a squirrel, anyhow, so I'm justified in taking the long way down...

But jumping, man. Jumping is where it's at, as the cool kids would say. And parachutes are simple enough. Just catch some air and it will slow things down... throw a gleam at Jacob, tell him he's going to love this. We're all going to love this, if we can make it work. And I know, mum! Geeze. After I deal with this, you're going to love this.

So now my room's a little cleaner and the ideas are just jumping around. Everything's jumping, really. Heart, stomach, thoughts and lunch. Found a glider. Toss, how far does it go? Far. It's light, but it's simple. It just goes, no propeller, now winding the string up, no fancy gadgets, just toss and go... gathering on the roof, oh, if only mum knew we were here, I toss it. We watch as the glider slides through the air, past the yard, past the road, past the treeline into the neighbour's yard, then it starts to drift upwards, more and more, before stopping and nosediving straight into Hudgens' van and completely shattering into component styrofoam parts on impact.

Not exactly the demonstration in mind, but it did impress. Do it again, Clara insisted, do it again! Only reason she was even here was so she wouldn't tattle, but our little roof party was already almost out of demonstrations, so it didn't matter.

One more, I said. This one was a rock affixed to a small circle of plastic with ten or so strings. A parachute, basically. Dropping it off the edge, everyone crowds around, laying down and leaning forward as the eaves creak under our weight. For a moment it just falls, but then, with a satisfying poof, the 'chute catches air and the entire thing slows, drifting lazily down to land softly in the juniper.

We could do that ourselves, you know. Just make the parachute a little bigger.

So Jacob, of course, who cannot fathom why we would need such a thing, jumps himself, lands as perfectly as ever, and starts laughing at Clara's inevitable shriek.

Because we could go further than that, I call down. We could actually fly ourselves, maybe not into Hudgens' van, but at least as far as the pine!

Doable. A little research. Did a science fair project on paper aeroplanes once, but that was just a case of aw hells, need to fudge something, need to fudge something, need to fudge something... pity this couldn't be the project. Could get a nice ribbon for it, save for the fact that no grown-up would ever hear of such a thing. Ent safe. Don't do it. En't safe for them, certainly, but they're so brittle and stiff and flappy, of course it ent.

So I tells the others, all we really need are some wings. We need to shape them and to angle them properly, and it doesn't even need to be precise, just precise enough to fly.

And we'll need to wear pants.

Tell me, do your videogames allow you to fly? To properly fly, where if it don't work and you didn't properly learn the stuff, you fall to your hurt and everyone gets to laugh at you as your mum comes running out shrieking at you for being the worst son she ever had, despite the fact that as her only son you're technically her worst anyway, but anyway? Where if it does work, you have something you can brag about for the next few years, something real and proper and tangible, not that I beat a game!, but that I mastered flight and flew off the roof.

Because I did. We all did.

Even Jacob took his pants off to that.