My father bought me a phone when I was 11. At first, I reserved it for calls only, no music, no social media. A few weeks into the ownership, I hit upon more functions of the novel gadget. Its best use, to my joy, was gaming. The following weeks saw me playing loads of games on the device. Before I knew it, I had got obsessed with the fun gaming brought about. The new toy was on my mind day and night.

By the time Father became aware of my addiction, it was already too late. To prevent me from sinking further, he confiscated the phone. At the beginning, I did not know where Father kept it. So strong was my hankering for the gadget that before long I found out that it was stored in a cupboard in the living room.

Because I dared not use the phone in the daytime, I had to arise for gaming at dead of night, after my parents retired to bed. After hours of games in my bedroom, I returned the gadget to its hiding place. It was almost a nightly occurrence for weeks, and my parents did not detect anything unusual.

As a result, the next day sleeping in class became part of my daily routine. I began to fail my exams. The failures did not stop me from feeding my passion at night, however.

Without telling me about it, my parents made a surprise visit to my teachers and learned about my school behaviour.

On a rainy night, as usual, I pulled myself out of bed around 12. To my chagrin, muffled voices were wafting over from the living room. It meant Mother was still up talking on her phone. Father had been on night shift that week. I waited in the dark patiently for a long time until I heard nothing drifting in from the living room except for raindrops pitter-pattering upon the windowpanes. It was raining cats and dogs.

I tiptoed to the living room, where I found the phone in its usual hiding place. No sooner had I dug it out of the cache than the lights were flicked on. To my horror, I saw my parents seated on the sofa, glaring at me. Giving me a dirty look, Father bellowed between his teeth, “Nice job, son!”

That night has been the darkest in my entire life, Shengliver.

The days and weeks after that night witnessed the wane of my obsession with phone gaming, thanks to my father’s intervention. Although the lure of the forbidden fruit still surged from time to time in my mind, I did not have the guts to go and pluck it again.