My Tamagotchi Was Programmed To Die (Fiction)
Tamagotchi (Japanese: たまごっち; IPA: [tamaɡotꜜtɕi], "Egg Watch") is a brand of handheld digital pets marketed since 1996 by Japanese toymaker Bandai, a division of Bandai Namco Holdings. Most Tamagotchi are housed in a small egg-shaped handheld video game with an interface consisting of three buttons, with the goal of raising the pet as it goes through different life stages.
I was born in a litter of ten near the end of December, with nine other squelching, slicked-fuzz whelps mewling and fighting for air. None of our eyes had opened yet, and they wouldn’t for a few more days. The nurse collected us newborns from where we spilled out from between my mother’s legs and put us into small bassinets before wheeling us away. This isn’t something I remember, but after coming out of my mother’s warm yet crowded womb, I probably thought that this spacious, cold, glass-walled container would be my home for the rest of my life.
For our 11th birthday, the six of us got identical little plasticine toys in our stockings. (The missing four didn’t survive past 21 days, at the oldest. That’s just what happens sometimes with big litters.) My parents watched as we chewed and clawed open the dense plastic packaging that kept it safe, and we revealed our prizes.
Mine was an Original Tamagotchi with taffy stone shell and black 'Tamagotchi' display, buttons, and a gold frame, generation 2 programming and characters, plus updated logo. Battery (CR2032) included. My near-identical siblings got the same product with different shell colors in order to differentiate between which belonged to who — we would often get in fights concerning who “owned” specific cups and bowls and whatnot, so this was smart thinking on my father’s part. (He was the one who decided on these gifts.)
We shucked off the plastic and hunched over our new pets, hatching the eggs, feeding them. Each of us were at different levels of engrossment. Our winter pelts had reached their peak, stark white.
After that Christmas, I don’t have many memories of these toys. For a few days when I went back to school, I clipped the toy to my belt loop and would idly play with it during class. One of my sisters sobbed when her Tamagotchi first died. That’s about it.
When I was cleaning out my old room’s closet more than a dozen Christmases later, I found my old toy, sitting at the bottom of a small plastic bin filled with a few other trinkets from the same era. Preserved in a layer of acrylic, sparkly sediment, fossilizing a few stray items of my youth. I brought it out to my parents and asked them if they remembered it. My dad adjusted his glasses and leaned in close to get a better look at the object, his nostrils flaring slightly, trying to pick up a scent from nearly two decades ago.
“I got those for you all. My work pal saw them in a magazine and said to me, ‘hey, these look like neat toys.’ New tech. Thought it would hold you all off on asking for a pet for a while.” He chortled. In the kitchen, my mother called for my sister to come help with the dishes.
Upon activating the pet, an egg appears on the screen. After setting the clock on the device, the egg will wiggle for several minutes, and then hatch into a small pet. The player can care for the pet as much or as little as they choose, and the outcome depends on the player's actions. The first Tamagotchi units could only be paused by going to set the clock, effectively stopping the passage of time in the game, but in later models, a pause function was included.
My first actual memory of a sibling's death occurs at age 14.
Tucker was one of the others who had made it past the initial age of pup death. He was a picky eater and could change energy levels on a dime. There was a little patch of fur just under his jawline that never shifted color in the seasons, for whatever reason. He got a black Tamagotchi with neon flames in a yellow-to-purple gradient, silver frame. I wonder where he put it. I wish I could ask.
My brother Walt and I were walking with him back from school. Tucker liked to bob and weave up onto the curb, beside the sidewalk, climb fences and swing around stop signs and street lamps. Sometimes he would jump and yell, making noises just to surprise us. I had learned to ignore him by then, not pay him any mind when he was vying for attention. We had our backs turned while we waited for the stoplight to flick to red, and behind us, he began climbing a tree. We didn't take him seriously when we heard him shriek—there had been times where he screamed even louder, like he was experiencing something past terror. A death scream. This did not sound what I thought a death scream sounded like. It is hard to scream when your neck is broken.
My next memory of a sibling’s death isn’t too far later. 17 years old, my sister Julia killed herself. She blended a mixture of her antidepressants, painkillers, and over-the-counter drugs into a smoothie. We didn’t spend a lot of time together growing up. At dinner, I would always notice her ears flat back on her head. It is pointless for me to say I wish I had done something, anything, differently back then.
Poor care can cause a pet to die, but on certain releases, it can also die of old age. If an old pet dies without producing offspring, the family line has ended. The Japanese Tamagotchi toys usually feature a ghost and headstone when the pet dies, but English language versions have been changed to show an angel at death.
I sit in my closet, hunched over my Tamagotchi. Oliva enters and asks me if I can help setting the table.
Instead of saying no, I asked my sister if she remembered that spacious, cold, glass-walled container of the hospital bassinet right after we were born. Her ears flick in surprise when I ask.
“What? No way. You remember that?”
I do remember. Did she remember when we got the Tamagotchis for Christmas that year?
“Uh, I think I do. I remember Julia throwing a fit about hers, I’m pretty sure.”
My dewclaw clicks the right button, scrolling through the care options. I’m not looking up at her as I speak. Am I the only one who really remembers these things?
“Ask Walt next time you see him, I don’t know.”
This year, he wasn’t able to make it to our Christmas celebration. We meet up at Mom and Dad’s house the entire last week of December to ring in the new year together as a family. I’m pretty sure his wife is fighting something nasty. Stroke recovery, blood clot in her left leg.
My Tamagotchi refuses to eat, play, or sleep. A floating skull blips up and down by her head. I tap my way to the medicine tab and heal her with a click.
There is sometimes more than one death based on how well the pet was cared for prior to death. Pressing the C button shows the age at which the pet died. After the pet dies, a player can restart the game by pressing the A and C buttons at the same time.
There is no way to think about my birth without thinking about death in turn. I can’t imagine the face of any of my siblings before seeing a nearly identical one in my mind, one that doesn’t age any longer. Tucker and Julia are older, permanent teenagers. Yvette died seven months ago in a car accident, and it still feels fresh, a slicing open of what was supposed to be a scarred-over wound, but the tissue just opens up even harder and deeper. We are well-primed for funerals with my family. Hers was efficient.
The rest of my dead family stay infants in my head. Those same mewling, whimpering pups.
Why do I know just what make and model my Tamagotchi is when I can barely recall the date of my brother’s wake? What purpose do I have for the memory of the hospital bassinets? Mid- twenties now, hopefully far from death but unable to say for sure, I draw my knees up to my chest and pull my tail close to my body. My winter coat is at its peak.
The name of my Tamagotchi is “Kuchipachi.” A miniscule 8-bit animation cycles of him opening and closing his beak over and over. Speaking, or hungry, or just stretching his muscles.
All alone in a closet, untouched and caked with dust, asleep for years. As long as he is fed, washed, and played with, a new form will develop from him, shaped by what he ate, how he was cleaned, and when he was entertained— this cold-walled, glass container will continue to be his home for the rest of his life.