Console

I simply saw a Wii console, and then spent the next three hours writing this story as it came to me.

Console

The year is 2067.

It has been 5 months since I saw another human being.

It has been 3 years, 14 days, and 6 hours since the bombs stopped falling.

And yet, this house remains pristine, abandoned by the family that lived there, a family that is no doubt now buried somewhere in a government shelter.

I cross the yard of this home, gauss rifle held loosely in my grip, and the pack of dogs that I surround myself with for company arranged all across the landscape. The yard is dirt in places, tall weeds in others, and a low fieldstone wall peeks from beneath the weeds. Obviously the previous owners had lovingly landscaped the home, a fishpond next to the steps and genetically altered ferns lining what remained of the concrete walk. The driveway to my left held a myriad of cracks, native Virginian weed forcing its way through the permacrete surface. Not even a surface designed to withstand nature could last very long under the onslaught of the forest. Virginia. What a funny, useless designation of place. Back in the old days, it stood for something, was part of a global united force against those out to destroy peace. The United States was at its peak, all 107 states firmly aligned towards good. And then one fool acting on orders from an even more important fool had to go and hit the button. The Big Red Button that probably read “End of the World” in Korean or Chinese or Arabic or whatever it was. And even when we knew it was coming, bombs of that size pretty much ruin everything no matter where they blow up. And so here I am, wandering the backwoods of Virginia, looking for people, supplies, and wild animals that I can hunt. The house has remained impassive to all of this change, even with some slight exterior weather damage, the structure appear solid. The durasheath paint coats the walls of the house in a pretty light green color, and the exterior trim retains a shining white hue. Whatever humanity had done wrong, the civilizations of the past sure knew how to make paint last. Stepping onto the porch I shouted out my customary and useless greeting, I expect no answer and I do not receive one. I try the front door panel, and suddenly everything changes.

“PLEASE ENTER THE SECURITY CODE” Rings out through speakers hidden somewhere on the porch.

I jump off the porch, startled, and unsure if what I had really heard anything at all. The porch swing creaks slightly from my sudden movement, adding to the surrealistic nature of the scene. I remount the porch, and try the panel again.

“PLEASE ENTER THE SECURITY CODE”

There is no possible way for me to know this code, so I instead decide to kick the door in, shattering the deadbolt locks after three tries. Immediately an alarm begins to ring throughout the home, echoing stridently throughout the forest, scaring my dogs and causing hundreds of birds to take flight.

“INTRUDER”

“The police have been notified”

“INTRUDER”

The alarm continued to sound, and for a second, everything was normal. Here I was, just a normal guy breaking into the normal house of a normal family. For a second, the war had never happened, and the cops would really come, and I would be put on trial and placed in the hands of a functioning government. But then the alarm stopped. It beeped out one last

“INTRUDER”

Then it began to just emit a steady, barely audible bleep. Evidently the alarm system had just decided to wait for the police to arrive, police that would never arrive in cars that no longer worked. A house that hoped for the arrest of this robber, an arrest that would never happen. But the most important thing that I learned was that this house was special.

It obviously had some sort of electrical generating device, though they were supposed to have been all destroyed with the EMP blasts years ago. The alarms had been given power, which means the rest of the house likely had power as well. I walked towards what appeared to be the kitchen, and opened the fridge to find…

Nothing.

The inside was dark, the contents ruined. Even food engineered for longevity could not stand three Virginian summers. And that meant no more food for me. But the previous inhabitants had to be directing the power somewhere. And if not to food storage, then where was it going?

Crossing through the kitchen, I passed an antiquated wood stove, a device that used to burn wood for heat and light, before all such high carbon emitting products were outlawed by the government. I cross beside a red leather recliner, obviously a favorite in the family evidenced by the wear along the arms, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. I climbed the stairs two at a time, with Steve the golden retriever racing up the stairs between my legs, and nearly causing me to fall. The first two rooms I came to, the light panels failed to turn on the lights. I was about ready to go back downstairs when the next light panel I hit illuminated the room at the end of the hall. The lights embedded in the ceiling sprang to life like overexcited puppies, and I raised my arms to shield against the brightness of artificial lighting. I hit the panel again, and the lights fizzled out, one of them blowing out with a noise like a firecracker from not having been used in so long. In the semi-darkness of the room, I noticed a glowing orange light, connected to a white box that rested on a low black table underneath a wall mounted plasma screen. The screen must have been purchased right before the end of the world, while the white box was an antique gaming device, built decades before. Remembering my own childhood, I tapped the orange dot, and the Wii whirred to life, powered by the energy grid that coursed through the house. Using the power of a solar grid or a geothermal network, I flipped on the screen with a wave of my hand, and watched the animations begin. Taking one of the controllers that had been charging for the last three years, I clicked on the game that fate had chosen, Need for Speed Carbon. The menus made me tear up, remembering how simple life used to be, and for over an hour I was able to lose myself in relearning the controls, and driving around a fictional American city. My dogs watched the screen with wonder, at this magical glowing panel filled with shapes, color, and noise. However, I could not continue to ignore the steadily dropping sun or my own need for food. After ramming yet another police vehicle in another high speed pursuit, I stopped playing, and returned to the home screen. The familiar matrix of rectangles appeared, but another feature caught my eye. In the lower right-hand corner, an envelope symbol bounced with a new message.

Looking at that symbol, I was filled with an indescribable hope, that finally, after all this time, I will receive a message from a survivor over the freaking Nintendo Wii network.

I frantically clicked on the message…

And was immediately filled with a crushing despair.

“Hello! Today you have played:

Need for Speed Carbon for 01:17”

It was just a message to myself, telling me something that I had done literally moments before. I began to click back through the calendar, which remained completely blank until I had reached the beginning of the year 2023. The notification stated:

“Hello! Today you have played :

Wii Play for 01:37

Wii Sport for 00:15”

And another:

“You got a gold medal on all Wii Play activities. Good job Sarah!”

That name. Sarah. It was the first human name I had heard in months. The first human connections, a connection with a member of this house how is probably no longer alive. This girl who had once held the very controllers I am holding and had beaten all the level here. This girl who had succeeded and been defeated, but had nevertheless triumphed over the game. This girl, who according to the notifications on the calendar, had added 11 years to her life by playing Wii Sports for a couple of hours. 11 more years of life she probably never got to use.

I continued clicking back through the calendar, through years and years of history. The life of this family is written clearly before me, when they were happy or sad, triumphant or frustrated. The character Jake appears every so often, winning an achievement in Wii Sports and then not playing for another few months. Every Thanksgiving Madden 2007 is played, and Jake has yet to lose to his father. Every year at that time they played, and I can just imagine the gloating look on Jake’s face of having done it again, and the father smiling, saying he’ll get it next year, even though he purposefully never plays his best.

Sarah plays most often, competing in the fishing games and getting good enough at flying virtual planes so she can prove to her brothers she is able to do it. The high scores are held by the sister who wants to prove that she is able, and has done so on this device. During the summers, the play logs show games like Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, games nearly as old as the console itself. The days they are played I can imagine a party atmosphere, friends coming over, gesturing wildly with controllers and crowing over wins. Angry shouts at an unlucky item or move and accusations of cheating or hacking, accusations that are always false.

And then one week, where the new Lego Star Wars videogame has been released, and the game is played for hours upon hours. The three siblings have a desperate need to finish the story, to unlock all of the secrets and finish the storyline, Ryan yelling downstairs that he can’t eat dinner yet. A time of frustration with obstacles and frantic shouts about what move to make.

This scene is repeated with the father, who had received a new flying game, and every night after the kids are asleep he plays. He is diving and banking, strafing the streets of Paris and bombing ships at Midway. He is the best aviator in the Air Force but even he must play with the sound low in order to not wake the children who are sleeping. And finally I have reached the very beginning, the end and the beginning of my understanding of this family. The calendar goes to December 25, 2006. The day the first piece was unboxed, Christmas morning. The mad excitement of the kids and the joy of the parents at a toy well purchased. The first ever use by that family of Wii Sports, and the hours of entertainment it contains. But for me, it is the end. The end of the girl Sarah, of Jake, of the father. These people are ghosts now, and I have finished the timeline of their lives.

 I get up, tears slipping down my face, and briefly contemplate smashing the white box to pieces, before I gently click the off button instead. This world has already seen enough destruction. I wave the screen off, and then leave the room. Having already checked the upper rooms for supplies, I head down into the basement, my dogs swirling around my feet in order to explore this new place underneath the home. For some reason, the lights here are not activated, so I turn on my shoulder lamps and shine them around the open darkness. In the far corner of the room, a steel door reflects the glare of lights, and I approach it, flinging it open to illuminate what is inside. With this actions, the house reveals its final secret.

A small room greets me, lit up but recessed lights in the ceiling. It is about 3 strides long and 4 wide. But at the other end of the room, a door that belonged in a bank vault sat set in concrete, and a blinking data screen next to the door read:

“Kyle, if you have managed to reach us, the kids and I are inside, along with the neighbors from up the hill. If it is safe to leave, enter the names of our children below. That will trigger the vault door. I pray you reach us.”

At this moment, it seemed as if fate had been watching over me from the moment I entered that structure. From the white box upstairs, I had been given everything that I need to make contact with these people. I entered the names slowly and carefully below the message:

“”

The screen flashed red, cleared the names, and the door failed to open.

“”

The screen flashed red again, and began to emit a steady beeping noise. Then it went quiet and stated:

“”

Those five minutes were some of the worst moments that I had to endure over the course of my life as I waited for the unlock screen to reappear. I was suddenly unsure of what I knew, if another incorrect entry would lock the vault forever. When the lock screen finally reappeared, I hesitantly entered

“”

The screen flashed green, and with a slight rumbling noise the great steel door slid away on unseen rails in a slot in the wall, revealing a white paneled corridor lit with pale green lights. This time, for the first time since the bombs stopped falling, when I shouted out my customary greeting, I fully expected an answer.