like its host, a temporary custodian, nothing more. He wasnât bitter. He only wished it well wherever its invisible wings had taken it.
Nevertheless, there were times when he looked back on his years as a wunderkind with nostalgia. In the years that followed he caught himself again and again trying to recapture the feeling of effortless mastery and easy serenity that heâd known on the chessboard, the sense that he was special and meant for better things. He looked for it in his schoolwork, in sports, in sex, in books, and even, much later, in his job at Esslin & Hart.
He never found it.
Â
WHEN EDWARD WOKE up he was still lying on the couch. It was dark out. He sat up and slid off his tie, which was creased and wrinkled from having been trapped underneath him.
A weak, pinkish glow from the streetlights outside lit up the two front windows. Edwardâs apartment was long and narrow, the shape of the skinny Upper East Side apartment building the top floor of which it occupied. It was all one big room, more or less: Up front was the living room, which gradually became the study, which gave way onto a crawlway-thin galley kitchen, and behind it an ill-lit bedroom and a disproportionately sumptuous bathroom. He could have afforded a place twice the size, but heâd never had the time to look for one, and what was the point? He was hardly ever here. The air-conditioning blew out last summer and he hadnât even bothered to get it fixed.
His clock radio spelled out 9:04 in skinny red trapezoids. Edward stood up and went over to his desk in the darkness, undoing his white shirt with one hand. It was too early to go to bed, but he wasnât sure he really wanted to be awake either. Yawning mightily, he picked up his jacket where heâd dropped it on the floor, and he felt the stiff shape of the manila envelope in the inside pocketâZephâs present. He took it out and looked at it.
Zeph had written on the envelope, in block letters,
Â
FOR EDWARD, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME
Â
He slipped the CD out into his hand. It was completely unmarked, and he had to guess which way up it went. As he tilted it in the light, two rainbow spokes chased each other around the center hole.
Edward sighed. He had a colleague named Stewart, a couple of years younger than he was but still a grown man, who kept a GameBoy in his office. He was addicted to itâhe played with it constantly, during meetings, on the phone, by the water-cooler, in the back of a limo. It was one of the jokes around the office, Stewart and his purple GameBoy, but Edward just found it embarrassing. He loathed the slack expression on Stewartâs face while he played itâthe fixed gaze, the loose, parted lips, like a moron trying to solve a calculus problem. If he ever saw that GameBoy come out in front of a client, Edward swore he would throw it out a window.
But he had no choice: He would at least have to take a look at the game. Zeph would ask. Edward walked over to his desk and felt around under it for the power button on his computer. He yawned and stretched while it booted up, then slipped the disc into the CD-ROM drive. A program calling itself âimthegame.exeâ asked permission to install itself. He consented. The program spent a few long minutes unpacking and copying a series of colossal files to his hard drive, setting itself up, looking around, making itself at home. When it was done there was a new shortcut on his desktop. He double-clicked on it.
The screen blacked out abruptly, and the speakers gave a vicious staticky
snap.
The hard drive chooked and whirred to itself like a hen laying an egg. For a minute nothing else happened. Edward looked at the clock again. It was half past nine. He could still change his mind about that party at Joe Fabrikantâs office if he really wanted to. His desk lamp made an island of light in the darkened apartment. He leaned his head on his hand.
Then his computer was awake
Nevertheless, there were times when he looked back on his years as a wunderkind with nostalgia. In the years that followed he caught himself again and again trying to recapture the feeling of effortless mastery and easy serenity that heâd known on the chessboard, the sense that he was special and meant for better things. He looked for it in his schoolwork, in sports, in sex, in books, and even, much later, in his job at Esslin & Hart.
He never found it.
Â
WHEN EDWARD WOKE up he was still lying on the couch. It was dark out. He sat up and slid off his tie, which was creased and wrinkled from having been trapped underneath him.
A weak, pinkish glow from the streetlights outside lit up the two front windows. Edwardâs apartment was long and narrow, the shape of the skinny Upper East Side apartment building the top floor of which it occupied. It was all one big room, more or less: Up front was the living room, which gradually became the study, which gave way onto a crawlway-thin galley kitchen, and behind it an ill-lit bedroom and a disproportionately sumptuous bathroom. He could have afforded a place twice the size, but heâd never had the time to look for one, and what was the point? He was hardly ever here. The air-conditioning blew out last summer and he hadnât even bothered to get it fixed.
His clock radio spelled out 9:04 in skinny red trapezoids. Edward stood up and went over to his desk in the darkness, undoing his white shirt with one hand. It was too early to go to bed, but he wasnât sure he really wanted to be awake either. Yawning mightily, he picked up his jacket where heâd dropped it on the floor, and he felt the stiff shape of the manila envelope in the inside pocketâZephâs present. He took it out and looked at it.
Zeph had written on the envelope, in block letters,
Â
FOR EDWARD, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME
Â
He slipped the CD out into his hand. It was completely unmarked, and he had to guess which way up it went. As he tilted it in the light, two rainbow spokes chased each other around the center hole.
Edward sighed. He had a colleague named Stewart, a couple of years younger than he was but still a grown man, who kept a GameBoy in his office. He was addicted to itâhe played with it constantly, during meetings, on the phone, by the water-cooler, in the back of a limo. It was one of the jokes around the office, Stewart and his purple GameBoy, but Edward just found it embarrassing. He loathed the slack expression on Stewartâs face while he played itâthe fixed gaze, the loose, parted lips, like a moron trying to solve a calculus problem. If he ever saw that GameBoy come out in front of a client, Edward swore he would throw it out a window.
But he had no choice: He would at least have to take a look at the game. Zeph would ask. Edward walked over to his desk and felt around under it for the power button on his computer. He yawned and stretched while it booted up, then slipped the disc into the CD-ROM drive. A program calling itself âimthegame.exeâ asked permission to install itself. He consented. The program spent a few long minutes unpacking and copying a series of colossal files to his hard drive, setting itself up, looking around, making itself at home. When it was done there was a new shortcut on his desktop. He double-clicked on it.
The screen blacked out abruptly, and the speakers gave a vicious staticky
snap.
The hard drive chooked and whirred to itself like a hen laying an egg. For a minute nothing else happened. Edward looked at the clock again. It was half past nine. He could still change his mind about that party at Joe Fabrikantâs office if he really wanted to. His desk lamp made an island of light in the darkened apartment. He leaned his head on his hand.
Then his computer was awake
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