“Think… Think of something that is important to you…” The bird chirped on the sill of the window. “Of how the colors blend, of the smell of packed mortadella sandwich lunches, yoghurt and gouache. Of kindergarten and sunny days. Of how happy and full your heart was. Of…” And then it flew away, mid-sentence, not letting my imagination catch up to what the chirps and birdsongs could’ve meant. I can’t really think of anything significant. Except that the early days of my childhood were golden, pure and untainted… Simple and fun days. Perhaps, it is only my perception that makes it so, and lifts off my chest the burden of reminiscence. Maybe, my mood is good today and I am unbothered to think of the discomfort and negativity of the past. I do know my mood congruency and psychology theories well after all. Dare I say that I might have been happy? I’m glad I damaged my brain enough in the last few years to erase a good portion of the negativity and discomfort of my past. I must have killed a fair share of my neurons too… In a way I am dumber, but I’d also like to believe that I’m way happier. Now to be honest, I’m uncomfortable in this endeavor. I’m not at ease with having to talk to myself, in forcing myself to pry away to find something significant to say; something that “a lesson can be learned from”… Life is chaos. There is no lesson to be learned from misery, or of all the terrible, horrible, inexplicable, and frankly unnecessary events of life. Everything has been desecrated and commercialized, because people, like vultures find a delectable pleasure in the pain of others. I’m amazed at the insanity of packaging suffering into something ‘inspirational’ and ‘thoughtful’. I’d rather speak of what speaks to me: a good memory.

Sixteen years ago, there was a small infinity in a sepia two-bedroom apartment. The living room was the soul of our home, and where we’d essentially come together as a family. The floors were lava to be crossed from the couch sentinels, and under the dining table: luxurious forts would be built with soft blanket floors and cushiony walls. MBC channel and Cartoon Networks blazed our imaginations even further. We made up stories, believed them even… Ghosts breathed in on our necks while we were sleeping in our beds, dolls were secretly planning to murder us like Chucky, and maybe Pennywise was living in the sink’s drain. The living room also had one the most central things to my childhood, and possibly the push behind my current major in college: the stationary computer.

As a child of a strict middle class family, I wasn’t spoiled or allowed much extravagance. My needs were generously met, and I was content, but of course the heart always yearns for more than it needs. I had taken to playing an online game: ‘Habbo’, and my parents would not, absolutely not, buy me the virtual coins that I was so desperate for. Habbo was a game in which players could make avatars, visit and decorate rooms, trade all at the cost of Habbo credits: the ultra-consumerist utopia. Thus, began the saga of virtual financial crime. It was common to conduct mini-scams, and I masterminded my way into one of the greatest heist I’ve ever conducted to this day.

It was a warm summer night; song of cicadas, mosquito buzz, sweat and thin tile pattern blankets. One of the many summer nights where my sister and I couldn’t sleep, but that we still had to. We were afraid of dad finding us using the computer in the middle of the night. Hastily pulling out the plug would not work, as he’d pat the central unit to check if it was warm and then instantly see through our bluff. It was a game of cat and mouse. Of course, rules are meant to be broken! Especially, when you are a kid and you had your virtual empire of financial crime to run. The day of our greatest heist, we had learned about a glitch that made a very cheap item: a pixelated dog ball, look like a black hole. No one had ever heard of a ‘black hole’ item, so it was a perfect opportunity to deceive and bluff other gullible kids on the server about it: “The limited edition super rare black hole in the wall”. Thus, trading it for an actual rare item or selling it for an expensive item. My sister spent the majority of the day trading or seeing how to buy as much as possible of the dog balls to trick some poor souls into buying them, and before we could sell them the clock was already dangerously ticking near our bedtime. Evidently, one of our fears was that the admins of Habbo would catch on to the glitch and would patch it overnight. We felt the pressing urgency to sell all of the glitch dog balls we’ve accumulated, or half of our capital would’ve vanished for nothing. Mom served us dinner, and I asked if we could sleep in the living room as our shared bedroom was too hot. It took some convincing to not raise any suspicions. And so very few hours later, after pretending to be asleep and passing dad checking on us, we awoke to conduct our evil master plan. Per precaution, I snuck into the kitchen to get freezer packs to cool the central unit with. I wasn’t fazed by the pins and needles the cold packs sunk into my hands: my heart was pumping out of my chest from the thrill of this forbidden adventure.

Back into the living room, my sister nodded at me as she turned the computer on. No talking, no fast typing either, only scheming silence. I angled the cold packs on the sides of the central unit, and stood next to my sister seated in the swivel chair: like Dr. Evil’s mini-me. She swung the mouse to open the browser, then typed the domain and logged into our joint Habbo account. The strategy was simple and straightforward: befriend and betray. We would find a trading room, chat with users and entire them about our sham rare item, and then get them to buy for as high as possible. As an old Moroccan adage says: “the greedy is vanquished by the liar”. It was battle with time, a parkour in its own rank: many buyers were interested, and we were busy fooling them. My sister would take care of most of the typing, while I controlled the mouse: starting trades, and blocking users before they realize that the ‘Black hole’ was in fact a dog ball in their inventory. Sale after sale, we had dollar signs in our eyes, and we were slowly losing our initial focused and alert composure.

Dad peaked his head through the door, and immediately spotted us: contrasted by the light of the monitor in the darkness of the living room. He immediately started screaming and giving us an earful. We both were terrified, and retreated to the furthest corner. Dad didn’t even bother properly unplugging the computer, he just grabbed the central unit: along to squirm at the cold packs, and for him to be even angrier. My sister looked at me, paler than a ghost, her eyes were wide open and grabbed my hand to run. But where to? There was no escape. I felt blind terror as we both fled as fast as we could to lock ourselves in the bathroom. Hyperventilating, scared… I locked eyes with my sister, and soon, we burst out laughing as hard as we could. By that point, we had woken up everyone. Mom knocked at the bathroom door and urged us to come out. We eventually did, and yes, we were grounded the worst grounding of our lives. But I remember sleeping giddy and happy for some reason.

To this day, I still nostalgically log into my Habbo account… Well not as much as I used to but at least once every year to remember the good old days. I wonder if my childhood as a scammer, and my passion for computers had a role to play in me choosing computer science as my major and future career. It’s obvious that scamming is not a good thing to do, but that was and is still the reality of many children who couldn’t buy coins in virtual games but still wanted the good things in life. I have no regrets. It was fun while it lasted.