I watched an old man play bejeweled for his first time.
Peered through the gap in between the two airplane seats, through half closed eyelids, as I drifted and lulled between conciousness And a half awake mind
Like a voyeur peering through a window into the, Human phenemon of encounter and discovery,
His leathery hands waved over the touchscreen, to commence, entranced with wonder through his foreign eyes, that saw not the language but symbols and shapes
Wrinkled fingers manoeuvred deftly, Guided by blind intuition,
As they traced over the jewels blue blue orange Down a column To no avail
And green green purple across a row To no sucess
And several more times to no gain
As i quietly wished for his realisation of the goal to reach three-in-a-row
The subtle arrows and hints never seen and in-the-end, the pattern never spotted
But just as efficiently and gently did the fingers move. Did they too, glide over to the menu and so, left the game
Pointless, And trophy-less in knowledge.
My eyes roll back into its shades and I pondered sadly whether we learn slower and learn less as we age
Oh, the futility to learn something that didn’t need to be (twas’ just a game)
Or perhaps there is just a satisfaction in knowing or unknowing In the attempt and trial Without the final point in mind
and of those benign minutes of flight time passed Is not a bad thing. Is it?
Background: written on a work trip from Shanghai to Hamburg, over the long leg of the flight