Sometimes, she wouldn’t appear for months or even years then suddenly come back into my life. As I left, I went back down to the boat and took the long trip back towards the port by the beach. I felt surprisingly safe, despite it being pitch black all around, with only the stars and distant moonlight lighting my way. Slowly, I moved the boat back to its moorings where I’d originally found it and walked up the planks and took the long walk home. The last buses had stopped, and there wasn’t even a car. It was a long journey and my feet were aching at this point from all the dancing which I wasn’t used to. Even through I was alone, I didn’t feel that way. I still felt her presence hours and even days after we separated and this night was no different. I still couldn’t exactly understand where she came from or why she seemed to be protecting me. This was still a mystery, and even having been so close to her, she maintained a distance that I wasn’t able to close. She seemed to show up and appear at odd moments, as if she was aware of what was going on. It wasn’t always obvious since she never gave me warnings. I could never really predict when she would show up next. Eventually, my feelings would subside eventually and normalcy would resume. I had gotten very good at hiding this from other people, and I was good at concealing her from the outside. I never told anyone about her, this was something I wanted to keep for myself. I was very careful not to let anyone know when she appeared, and didn’t want anyone to know that how sad it was when she would disappear for extended periods. I was very careful when I felt she was around, and while it was difficult to hide, I don’t think anyone else had seen our encounters. Still, I needed to keep up appearances when others were around, and I did a pretty good job of it. In between, I’d immerse myself in the new world of electronic games and computers, which was quite exciting since it was exploding everywhere. I’d always sense that people knew there was something different about me. Seldom would a day pass when I wouldn’t have something reminding me about us. Reliving our encounters became problematic at times, and I had to shut it off and think about something else. This made it fairly difficult to pretend to be a normal kid, though I tried.

The night we shared at the island dance had been completely strange in many ways, and one I didn’t think I’d be able to recount effectively to anyone else. It was the kind of thing I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe. It seemed strange. As the weeks unfolded, my memories became less potent and I thought that it was merely something I had imagined. Spring rolled onwards as the months passed and the world gradually pivoted towards summer once again. The weaker pastels changed into stronger greens and the leaves on the trees became denser as each day. The sun brightened and lengthening days meant summer was close at hand. My anticipation began to intensify until final moment finally arrived. After school towards the end of June, I decided to take a walk down towards the beach. It was nearly summertime, and its hot world began to emerge from its long slumber. The sky was saturated in a deep blue that seemed to sparkle against the sun, with the scattered bands of clouds framing the sun effortlessly. It had been a long spring and I waited patiently for months for a day like that. I walked quickly towards the beach, anticipating what would await me there. The sun had begun to heat the ground and the sidewalks were beginning to warm, I could feel the heat underneath my feet, nearly burning through my shoes.

As I turned the last corner towards the beach, I decided to take a quick trip into the old ship docks. I searched around for nearly an hour, but couldn’t find any trace of the old boat I had used. I knew that it wouldn’t be there, but I just wanted to go and make sure. It might have bothered me, but it didn’t very much. Walking out of the boat dock, I thought about how and why the boat could have been placed there, why she would have taken me to such a strange place. It didn’t make sense to me, but I thought perhaps it was her way of protecting me, keeping any evil spirits at bay. She had me at first sight the previous summer, maybe the disappearing boat was her way of keeping our secret from the world. I walked by the boats and noticed many of them were now unwrapped from their winter tarps and I could see some people walking around working on them. They seemed a lot smaller now without them, more vulnerable and less intimidating. I walked through the dock and felt the sun begin to intensify as it took its pre-eminent position at the head of the sky, claiming its grand prize without contest. I intended to go back onto the beach and start swimming once again, anticipating the summer days ahead with my brother. It was looking like a promising afternoon until I hit an unexpected detour on the way.

I noticed that the arcade had opened for the season and went inside. There wasn’t very much different than the previous year, but things had been rearranged. I still followed games closely in my magazines. I was a little older at this point, and I was primarily interested in the new home games like the Atari system that I had gotten the previous Christmas. There were a few new arcade machines I read about in the magazines and one new game in particular had captured my imagination and created an interesting pull for me. I didn’t think they’d have it at our arcade. They held onto old machines for many years and rarely seemed to get new ones in, and as I looked around, I didn’t see anything new. All of the original games were still there, and I couldn’t resist another few rounds of Defender, which had been my favorite game the previous summer. I was a little bit rusty at first, but quickly got back into the flow, cashing in waves of enemies effortlessly. It felt like meeting an old friend, I found myself settling into old rhythms and patterns almost subliminally. After a few rounds, I wanted to look around the rows and see if there was anything new for that season. I passed the row of old pinball machines and the Skee-ball cluster in the back. Everything was in a familiar position, for the most part. I wasn’t sure what to play next, and I looked around the corner and walked towards the other side towards the front of the arcade. Then I saw it, nestled in between two older cabinets was that new game I’d heard do much about. It was from the same company that made Defender, but it had a personality all its own. Its name was scrawled on the marquee in bright red letters with an imposing, almost monstrous head in the middle. As I walked towards it, a synthesized voice called out from it, screaming its name. “I am Sinistar!” This was quite startling back in those days and it immediately set itself apart from the pack. I took a quarter out of my pocket as quickly as I could and started playing the machine.

It seemed simple enough at first, playing like a faster version of Asteroids, but Sinistar had a few twists that made it feel innovative and challenging. There were ships that were chasing you around a huge expansive of space. As you flew around they’d chase after you and fire relentlessly. As I played, I saw that instead of just breaking into pieces and disappearing, the rocks would release crystals. I didn’t know what they were for, so I kept blasting the rocks and other ships. Eventually, I lost my last ship and it was over. I didn’t know what was happening, but I though it was cool. I put in another quarter and got a little bit farther into the game this time, acquiring more crystals and getting a higher score. I found it quite difficult and the ships quickly got to me again. I was getting frustrated at this point, but I kept playing. The next few times, I didn’t progress much farther, but I was beginning to see a pattern. When I collected enough crystals, or survived long enough, Sinistar’s synthetic voice would suddenly roar, calling me a coward for running away from it, I I knew there was something about the game I wasn’t getting, I tried to figure out how to get it to appear but this led nowhere. It remained out of sight, taunting me from its distant perch but giving me no way of attacking it. I looked for it but it seemed to be nowhere to be found. Having wasted several quarters attempting to find it, I decided to examine things closer. I noticed the radar on the screen had a very big shape in the middle. This was where its demonic foe was hiding. It was there all along, waiting just off the screen, making itself known mostly through its screams and taunts and shouts, creating a menacing presence despite not being visible on the main screen’s playfield,

This was a radically different concept than other games at the time, most of which confined the action inside a single play field. It was such a cool idea that the added challenge made it more interesting. As my ship flew towards the demonic boss, I saw it was in the process of being built by the smaller ships that were attacking me. As I flew in closer, I discovered the crystals I had collected were then used to attack it, which changed my strategy. I tried to collect as many crystals as I could before reaching its area. More importantly, I had to hold onto them for the main boss while resisting the temptation to use them on the smaller ships. Unfortunately, Sinistar was a surprisingly aggressive and devious enemy. It effortlessly deflected my crystal attacks each time, destroying all my ships in quick succession. It seemed to be almost alive, stalking my movements, chasing after me, running towards me with almost supernatural speed. It was quite intense and required a different strategy than many of the tamer games. It reminded me of Defender in many ways, but it had a different feel to it. It was quite intense, but was a bit too difficult at for me least initially. It was something that demanded more time and practice, but I was running low on quarters and didn’t want to have to walk home, especially not at night. Reluctantly, I put its challenge on hold and left the arcade. On the way out of the arcade, I noticed that several other new machines with strange names I’d only vaguely heard like Xevious, Bosconian and, Gravitar had come out that summer, but I didn’t have the time for them at the moment. It was beautiful summer day and I didn’t want to spend all of it inside staring at screens. I’d save those challenges for another time.

As I walked back into the sunlight, my ears were still ringing from the games, my head was buzzing. Outside once again, it was disorienting, everything seemed too still, too quiet. I felt the sun on the back of my head, its rays beating down on me. Unlike the stale thick air inside the air-conditioned arcade, the air outside felt clean and new. The warm wind felt refreshing, blowing new energy through my body. As I looked back inside its windows, the arcade seemed to represent a different place. Inexplicably, it appeared to have shrunk in size it had the previous summer, smaller and shorter than I remembered. It seemed like a hidden oasis from the summer heat, one that represented an escape, but only temporarily. I felt the sidewalk under my feet starting to boil underneath once again, it was an uneasy feeling. I walked past the golf course again, watching its metal windmills and fabric clowns wilt underneath the relentless heat. I stood at the edge of the street and looked carefully and crossed in between the endless waves of cars that had suddenly converged. I walked across the grassy plain towards the sand. I looked down the shore to the east and saw the tree where I’d seen her for the first time the previous summer. I stared at it for moment and wondered if it had actually happened. I had often wandered towards that section but something always seemed to keep me away. I think there was a part of me that wanted to keep that area a secret. There was a part of me that feared what would happen if I lingered there too long. Someone would see me and figure out our secret, so it was best to stay away. I walked towards the ocean, my feet moving unevenly over the sand, still mushy and muddy from a rainstorm the previous night. I reached the edge of the sea where the waves came crashing in. I looked down and there were probably looked like a thousand sea shells underneath, I navigated around them to avoid their sharp edges and felt the water slowly begin to over-run my sneakers, saturating them with their salty water. I watched the tide roll in once again, its waves foaming at the edges consecutively building over each other as they relentlessly reclaimed each inch of sand. I walked towards the east, and stood there for a moment. I looked over the horizon, past a few boats sailing on their white sails crossing the beach beyond the buoys, and searched for our island.