LEARNING BY MIRANDA JACOBS

A mother strives to deal with the limitations of her ability to console her child.

My son, John, embattled in virtual warfare, finds his spaceship commandeered by a rival. Such a manoeuvre strikes him as odd given the framework of a game geared to skill and ability rather than attack, aggression.

"Damn!" he says, "i was enjoying this match.Now i will have to shut down, and then start over"

From outside, winter winds claw the warmth of the room via a recent crack in a windowpane. placing pinewood log on our life, "Are you there is nothing more you might try?" I ask all but certain there is not, but saddened to see him looks so forlorn. He shakes his head.

sitting back down at my desk , i resume work on my P.H.D dissertation on child development.

John re-boots his system. it seems Ok.

But then he absorbs the fact, by degrees, that someone has sent a viruses. desrtoyed the computer for which he had saved up for nearly a year. Worse, this vandal has to have been one of the players, perhaps even infiltrating the game for the chance to demolish.

As John sits baffled, bewildered, i sense questions he feels too awkward to ask:

Why would someone will have never met to me harm? whats the reason for this cruelty?

in my own mind i can only respond that throughout the history of human thought, there has been no definitive answer.

I ache to rush over, hug him and say, dad and i will buy you a better PC. Then go make some hot cocoa.

still, nothing i can promise or bring can erase the misery of this betrayal.

John is  a boy, a young man i should say, who one day last week came home from school drenched, shivering, ice formaing in his hair. frost on his eyebrows...........(continue)