Screen Time at 7

I have only been impressed by one computer. This being none other than the bulky box that sat on a table in the corner of my parents’ bedroom.

Beige bordered with untouched buttons, crevices for collecting dust, and clickety clackety keyboards to never be used gently- this is the one I loved the most.

Being limited, screen time had to be used to maximum efficiency and thus, was taken very seriously.

My sister always held the seat first- being older, this was her birthright. The bane of being the last child is knowing that you must wait.

The back of her head, my target, I watch impatiently as she carries out the most important of tasks. She grooms a virtual pet, feeds it- lest it die of starvation, forwards an appropriate amount of chainmail, watches a video, tends to her farm, and finally, draws a picture on Corel Draw.

She rises, and I take over- this is my seat now.

First, I check the wallpaper. As the internal law of a 7-year-old dictates, should a computer hold the image of the black dog provided by Windows (attached below for reference), said picture must, without fail, be made the wallpaper of the computer in question. To not do so is illegal, and a punishable offence. I don’t make the rules.

Knowing this truth, the evangelist in me sought to ensure that no computer touched was left without it. This was the way of the world and I abided by it.

Being an aspiring artist with an awardcase of mediocre compliments collected over the years from friends and family, I opened Paint and set to work on creating my masterpiece.

After enduring long but passionate minutes of sweat, tears and the seemingly uncontrollable urge to shock myself by touching the screen and the floor at the same time- I look at the lines before me.

A complex piece; a myriad of angles and jagged edges forming uneven shapes for me to bring to life. Being well-versed in my own rendition of colour theory, I use the trusty bucket tool to fill in the blocks, and suddenly, it happens.

Every artist’s worst fear.

I ducked up.

The red, meant to fill in the boundaries of the tiny quadrangle, had spilt over onto the rest of the canvas- a blood bath caused by a lack of intersecting lines, a tiny gateway for chaos.

It is ruined.

Undo.

I fix it- such is the convenience of digital art.

I save it in the folder “Shemali art”- created as a precautionary method, in case any future critics wanted to see my work.

colours.jpg now sits next to dog.jpg and underthesea.jpg

My third task ventures into writing, and competing against the likes of Judy Bloom is no simple feat for a 3rd grader.

I open my novel-in-the-making, SPARKY.doc and set to typing. Not quite as used to the ways of the QWERTY keyboard as the Nataraj pencil, war wages between the span of my fingers and the ticking clock.

I look up to see just how far I’ve come, and slowly gaze over the page speckled with pretty corrugated red lines- only to realize that there is just the one to look at.

One does tend to occasionally overestimate their ability to write a novel in 13 minutes.

How did you do it, Judy Bloom? How did you make it to chapter 2?

Demotivated by the premature ending of my career as a writer, and now distracted by the crunch of a leaf in the front garden, I hurriedly save my draft, close my windows and shut the computer down the “wrong way”- just like my mother told me I shouldn’t.

But that’s a problem for my sister, she has to use it first anyway. After all, it’s her birthright.