“I’ve done it, Susanne! It was a Herculean effort on my part, but I’ve done it.”
Anton’s tears were the only liquid that had cleaned his desk for months. While he worked on this project, some of his fingers were bloodied because, for hours on he end, he had scraped them against shiny, sharp steel microprocessors. Sweat poured down his face as if he had a fever or as if he was delirious with excitement.
The wall clock seemed to tick tock forever before Susanne raised an eyebrow. Then one of her eyes locked on to Anton. The second was still glued to her newspaper. Anton never understood how she could do that, especially with all the excitement in the room.
“What’s going on?”, she asked after shrugging her shoulders.
Anton held his baby in his hands and stared at it lovingly.
“I didn’t tell you why this project took so long. Did I?”
Suzanne sat there stone-faced, like a statue from Easter Island. She opened her mouth to speak, but Anton interrupted.
“Well, since you asked, it was a real challenge because the technology didn’t exist, so I had to invent it first. Now I hold here, in my mortal hands, a storage device with every video game ever made on it. Future generations will forever be able to partake in this art.”
“Great,” said Susanne, “How do you get them off there to play?”
“Well, you see, it’s not that simple…” Anton’s forehead started to wrinkle. “You start by…” His eyes became downcast and he bit his lip. “Noooooooooooooooo!”
Anton pulled out a clump of his hair and fell to his knees, sobbing.
Susanne sighed. Then went back to her paper.
Video Games Nebula 