How Pokemon Made Me Cry

Clang!.. Clang!..

Oh dammit.. I had just put my head down on the pillow, about to sleep after a long night, no, a long semester.. It was 7 in the morning, and after not sleeping properly for exam week, this last day was full of celebration and just being happy that we've gotten the exams over and done with. We were ridiculously homesick, totally broke, sleepy as hell, and our return flight dates weren't for another two days.

We lived in a first floor apartment, with a small supermarket right below us, and it seems that just as we decided to go to sleep, they decided that they should put their new sign up.

Clang!.. Clang!..

What the.. The sign they were putting up was right outside our appt, and we cursed the guys banging into the wall less than a meter or two from where we lied down. We still tried to sleep through the banging, the clanging, the drilling, but there was no use; it was too loud. We were really sleepy, really tired, really homesick, and no matter what we tried, we couldn't sleep through the noise.

By then it was almost 10am, and after 3 hours of not being able to sleep, we asked (screamed at) the workers when they were going to finish, and ended up being disappointed by the response; "not until 2pm". Oh crap.

Clang!.. Clang!..

The noise was getting unbearable and our heads felt like they were going to explode, so my friend decided we might as well just go out until they finish. After figuring that was the best course of action, we got changed, hopped into the car, and drove off. Now, it was the beginning of the summer and already the weather was hot, but what made it worse was that we were a bunch of broke students with a car whose air conditioning didn't work. We drove through the Sharjah traffic to Dubai, which I must stress is very slow and congested, and the unairconditioned jeep we were in (with it's hot leather seats) didn't make things much easier on this hot Dubai summer afternoon.

After a whole hour of sweating in our clothes, we made it to City Center Mall, and being broke, didn't have any money for drinks to cool ourselves down. But hey, just being out of that hotbox car in the traffic was great. Turning back and going home at this time was just stupid, since we would have to put up with rush hour traffic on the way back too. Luckily, my friend had two free cinema tickets, and we decided to go into the first movie we could find; thoughts of a dark, cool theatre hall so far away from the sun seemed so appealing.

The Pokemon Movie. Yes, unfortunately that's what was on at the time, and we went in without a second thought. We watched the Pokemon characters living happily together, then slowly drift apart during the cartoon movie, and end up fighting each other and destroying the land. The climax of the movie was when Pikachu (the main cartoon character, a very cute tiny thing) looked around in despair at everybody fighting each other and being turned to stone, and even through trying his hardest, couldn't stop the pain and fighting going on all around him.. And with us being stuck in Dubai and homesick, sleep deprived, broke, hot, just the whole situation coupled with the very, very cute Pikachu seeing everyone around him turning to stone as everyone fought everyone.. Well, lets just say the emotions inside of us were overwhelming, and tears started coming out of eyes.. And that, my friends, is how Pokemon made me cry.

From ammaros diary, June 2000

PS. On a happy note, Pikachu did end up saving the day, and Pokemon land was a happy place yet again