Eternal Summer

Summers meant everything to me growing up. In these sweltering months, my family would drive Route 65 down to wherever my peripatetic grandparents had landed that year. Cross country trips were agonizing in a car with a busted A/C. But I never minded so long as I had my Game Boy Advance. No game carried me through these long hours more so than Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

This game introduced a new world to the series, Twilight Town — a jarring inclusion for a game built on the protagonist’s memories, as it’s a place he’d never seen. The mystery of an unfamiliar world felt all too fitting as I gazed at towns I’d never see again from the window.

I recall a pit stop somewhere near Bowling Green just as the sky started to paint itself pink and the trees turned gold. This is the eternal state of Twilight Town, embraced by the same ethereal golden hour I saw stretch across the Kentucky sky.

We passed into Tennessee; the night continually crept in. The sun’s final wane was accentuated by a lulling 8-bit vibraphone emanating from my GBA’s compressed speakers, creating a soundscape that felt equal parts distant and familiar. It’s a tune you can’t quite place, one that calls to you from your youth.

As an adult, summers are a luxury I can never have back; there are bills to pay. These road trips don’t happen anymore. Still, every year I go back to Chain of Memories and sit in the magical evening glow of Twilight Town. I take in the warm pastel skybox and dreamlike field music. I feel warm. I’m somewhere on Route 65 again. As Sora grapples with the truth of his memories, I recall my own: here, it’s always summer.