Magico S2

When I was about 12 years old, my mother and I watched a movie on TV in which a ship closed in on a swimmer.

- ROGIER VAN BAKEL

The scene cut from the churning screw propeller to the vantage point of the hapless victim, inches above the waterline. The camera lingered there as the hull came closer, menacing, darkening the sky. Did the man survive? I don't remember. I do remember my mother looking at me and asking, a glint of amusement in her eye, “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“With your arms.”

I looked at her, not understanding.

“You held your arms over your head,” she said. “Warding off the boat.”

“Come on,” I said. “I did not.”

“You absolutely did.”

It was easier to become immersed back then, before jadedness dulled my wide-eyed enthusiasm. At 12 years old, every book I read was exciting even if, 10 or 15 years later, I would have thought it derivative or clumsily written. Every movie was a thrilling adventure, even with plots built on tropes and clichés and actors as lifeless as ventriloquist dummies. In those days I gave myself over.

Sometimes I miss sliding so easily into absorption. Occasionally though, when I'm lucky, it still happens, thanks to some of the high-end gear that comes in for review.

That time my brain broke