Page 6 of The Wish

T wo girls are sitting together on a single bed. Dressed in identical T-shirts bearing the face of Taylor Swift, they are each playing on Switches. They spend more time watching the other’s screen, laughing and nudging, trying to put each other off their play.

Alex comes to stand next to Kelly in the doorway.

She smells like fresh laundry. He can’t help but notice the contrast in the way she looks at the two girls, soft and warm and full of affection, with the way she looks at him, harder, judging him and not liking what she finds.

The girls are obviously undergoing chemotherapy, but the way they’re joking together gives Alex the impression that their treatment and diagnoses are the furthest things from their mind right now.

‘Can we help you?’ one of them, the taller one, asks playfully, her eyes large and dark.

The other one giggles, her hand over her mouth, her freckled face blushing.

Caught off guard, Alex looks from one girl to the other before looking to Kelly. She walks over to the bed and ruffles the taller girl’s spiky hair.

‘OK, Jesse – you know your wish? I’ve found someone who might be able to help, but we have to put him through his paces first.’ She grins.

‘Jesse, meet Alex. Alex, this is Jesse. And this is Amy, her roommate.’

‘Hello, girls.’ He gives a forced smile.

‘Oh my God. Girls, he called us girls,’ Jesse says. ‘We’re fifteen, we’re not girls anymore.’

‘So then, Alex, is it? Well, where do you work, how long have you worked there, what are the latest games you have made?’ Amy reels off her questions with the authority of an expert in the field.

‘Ah, what?’ is all Alex can stammer.

‘Your qualifications? What are they? How many games have you made? Were any of them any good, would we know any of them?’ Jesse adds.

Alex looks from Jesse to Amy to Kelly, not sure how to answer. ‘It’s very simple, Alex. What are your qualifications for helping Jesse?’ Amy asks.

Before he can answer, two teenage boys saunter into the room, the ones he saw from earlier, both still carrying their rolled-up newspaper swords.

‘What’s all this about qualifications?’ one of them asks.

‘Luke, Ryan,’ Kelly says, ‘this is Alex, he’s here to help Jesse with her wish.’

‘Is he now. So, are you going to answer Amy’s question? What makes you qualified to help?’ Ryan asks.

Alex feels put on the spot, and Kelly isn’t helping. She’s looking at him with a ‘come on then, show us what you’ve got’ expression on her face and clearly enjoying his discomfort.

He clears his throat.

‘Well, I was the sole creator on earlier games for the company I work for, but we’ve now moved into 3D CGI. That’s combining traditional filmmaking techniques with advanced CG and AI. I’ve done some virtual reality stuff but it’s out of date now.’

‘What’s the name of the company you work for?’ Luke asks.

‘TriOptic Studios,’ Alex answers.

‘Funny name, where’d it come from?’ Ryan joins in.

‘Well, the marketing guys tells us “Tri” incorporates 3D, suggesting seeing things in a new dimension, “Optics”, light, and together they convey creativity alongside technology.’

The four teenagers all burst out laughing and Kelly looks highly amused.

‘Did you have to learn that in case someone asked about the name?’ Amy asks, still giggling.

Alex allows himself a small smile. ‘Yeah, we did, actually. How did I do?’

‘Gold star!’ Luke says.

The teenagers relax a little bit and their expressions soften. ‘OK, we get the picture. So, what’s your experience with teenagers, girls in particular?’ Amy goes on.

‘Amy,’ Kelly says sternly, ‘that’s not appropriate.’

But Jesse has buried her face in a pillow, stifling laughter.

‘It’s all right,’ Alex says. He can feel his face turning red. ‘Ah, none, I have none, no experience with girls.’

‘What, you’ve never had a girlfriend?’ Amy throws at him.

‘That’s enough, Amy,’ Kelly says. ‘You three are coming with me. Let’s leave Jesse to tell Alex what she needs in peace.’

Kelly, Amy and the boys depart, leaving the door ajar behind them. With their departure, the atmosphere becomes less frantic and a lot more serious. To help compose himself, he wanders over to a pinboard on the wall next to Jesse’s bed.

He feels Jesse’s eyes on him as he studies the photos carefully: Jesse, pretty as a picture, long, light brown hair, building sandcastles on the beach with who he presumes are her parents and a younger brother.

A perfect nuclear family , Alex thinks ruefully.

Something he’s never known. Jesse racing on an athletic track, out in front, hair streaming behind her.

Jesse standing on a small podium with two other girls, a gold medal around her neck.

Jesse in a ballet leotard, her hair piled tightly on top of her head.

Jesse with her father, cheeks touching, eyes closed, sharing headphones.

Jesse and her brother lying on their stomachs painting on one piece of paper.

Jesse with her mother dressed up at a formal event.

‘Your family?’ he asks, turning back to face Jesse.

‘Yep.’

‘You’re an athlete?’

‘I was.’

‘And a dancer?’

‘Was.’

‘Is there anything you can’t do?’

‘Get better. That’s why you’re here.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Alex’s voice breaks. Are those tears welling up in his eyes? He needs to pull himself together, but he can’t. He takes a step backwards as if to leave.

‘You can come closer, you know; you won’t catch it from me.’

Alex nudges the chair beside her bed a little further away before sitting down.

‘Can you tell me what you want from me, please? No one has filled me in on the wish, on what it actually is.’

‘I don’t think anyone really gets what I want. I’ve talked to Kelly about it, and I think she’s trying to understand, but I can tell she doesn’t really get it. I need someone who can not only build my wish but who sees my vision. Does that make sense?’

Alex nods. He’s in safer waters. This is something he comes across in his daily work.

‘You want a proof of concept.’

‘A what of what?’

Alex grins. ‘A proof of concept. It’s like a plan of how to build something. So, in my line of work, someone might come to me saying, “I want a game where all the possums in the world turn into zombies.”’

Jesse rolls her eyes. ‘Oh wow, another zombie game. How original.’

‘Hang on,’ Alex says. He’s enjoying chatting to this kid.

‘That’s just an example. But let’s say someone does want a game where all the possums turn into zombies.

They’ll tell me what they want, including what they want it to look like, how zombies work in this world, what the aim of the game is, and then I’ll go away and think about how I could make it work.

I’ll do some drawings, write up a plan – that’s the proof of concept – and if it matches with the idea they’ve got in their mind, I’ll go ahead and make it. ’

Jesse nods thoughtfully. ‘So that’s what I want from you, at least at first. A proof of concept. I want to make sure you get what I want.’

‘OK then, hit me with it.’

Jesse takes a deep breath. ‘Well, here’s what I’m thinking.

I want a video, like a story of my life, with all the happy things my family and I have done, something that they can be part of, then watch if .

. . when . . . I’m not here. Kinda like when you take a lot of photos and make a slide show but more complex than that, I want to relive some of the photos we have and make them into a story of my family when I was in it.

Something they can experience. Something so they don’t forget me. ’

‘Don’t forget you,’ Alex repeats. It’s hard to think that this vibrant, intelligent girl doesn’t have much time left. It feels wrong. ‘Is there any chance that you might get better?’

‘Do you know what the word terminal means?’ Jesse says sharply.

Alex rubs his forehead. Life is so crap.

And he understands now why Kelly was so prickly with him before – it would be so much worse if he promised he could help Jesse but didn’t deliver.

What Jesse is asking for is amazing – beautiful even – he can see it in his mind’s eye, but it’s also incredibly ambitious and, if he’s honest, he just isn’t confident that he can do it.

‘I’m so sorry, Jesse, but I don’t know what I can do. It sounds like you want to make a movie, and while we partner with production companies, helping them make films and miniseries, this isn’t our area.’

‘But you make games, I’ve seen some with your company’s name on them.’

‘Used to. We’ve moved on from them for the most part, now we only make high-end CGI games for arcade use.’

‘But you do it, you make the same game over and over. Oh yeah, you change the characters and scenarios they play, but they are basically the same game.’

‘You know your stuff!’ Alex says with growing admiration.

This is something he’s thought for a long time – he’s even raised it with Ian, but his boss has zero interest in investing in innovation.

Alex feels he’s slowly watching TriOptics lose whatever edge on the market they once had, when Frank was in charge, before he retired and handed the company over to his dead-beat son-in-law.

He thinks of the project he has been working on at home.

‘I’ve been doing my research. What else am I going to do, sitting in this bed? My dream was to be a game designer. That’s not going to happen now, but with your help I’d like to design just one thing.’

‘Look, I’m sorry you’re sick, I really am, but I can’t promise that I can make what you want. It’s really ambitious. I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.’

‘Disappointed? So, you’re not even going to try?’ Jesse’s voice is full of disbelief and anger. ‘Because I might be disappointed? Don’t you think I know about disappointment?’

Alex is at a loss for words.

‘Why would you come here if you don’t even want to try?’ She shakes her head, on the verge of tears. ‘You don’t want to be here, do you? You don’t want to help me. You never did.’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘So, what are you doing here?’