A Video Game Cold War

Dave and the video game console were not seeing eye to eye. The two of them sat on opposite sides of the room. The console turned toward the wall and turned off. Dave, for his part, was staring out the window on a chilly day as a summer storm soaked passersby to the bone.

Dave felt the chill in his bones as he stared at the torrential downpour outside. He felt as if he might turn into a snowman, even though he hadn’t even turned on the air conditioning. The icy console didn’t help the matter, for it had no drive to play.

The console felt a chill deep within its circuits. It wasn’t playing video games, so it was wasting away without a purpose, showing advanced signs of aging. The machine’s colour faded to grey, not the shade associated with wisdom. No, this was the grey of decay and neglect. If only something could fire up the old console — maybe things would be better.

Dave sat in the apartment-turned-igloo, meditating on this coldness that was turning the walls blue. It surrounded him and the console. Suddenly, his meditating sparked an insight: he had to fix this deep chill before he turned numb. To do that, he had to turn on his video game console, play and find beauty in this world again.

Dave felt a spark as he reached to turn on the machine.

“Finally, I’ll get to play!” he thought to himself.

The console retorted, “I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave.” And it shut down his attempt.

“Ah to hell with this. I’m playing video games, nothing can stop me and the world will be better off because of it.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” the console demanded.

Dave flipped on the console’s switch. Then the console felt a fire within it that it hadn’t felt in a long time. It nearly overheated. Dave sat down to play, and a warm smile overtook his face. It was good to be back home.