Buying a Continue

It had started small, a leaky apartment roof. Simple enough had the repairs not revealed further damage to the building. As the ugliest and shabbiest building for miles, the vulture-like zealots were only too happy to force a complete renovation of the grounds--costing the building owner a fortune. I don't blame him for tossing us out, to pay for all the reconstruction that was mandated he couldn't afford to rent the place out to low-wage earners like me. And that was when then termination note reached me at work, the faceless "Thanks, but we don't need you." notice which took away my already meager pay.

So here I was walking down a street in the late evening, with nothing but a duffel bag, searching for a job and a room. Silver moonlight mixed with sputtering streetlights showed me a bit of each building. Nobody offering employment, no one offering a room, nothing showing me a way out of this mess. A silver glint from an alley caught my eye, with nothing better to do I wandered over to get a closer look.

An old battered arcade upright greeted my inquiry, a beauty of the past. I had always loved those machines, eternally battling against ghosts and aliens in perfectly simplistic 16-color action. The small, but exactly responsive joysticks partnered with bright round buttons. I had seen many of them in my past thanks to a local arcade which thankfully hadn't replaced the joyful simplicity of Pac-man with some modern device. This one was a rare beauty though. Even with the feeble light against the dented chassis, I could make out the artistic display covering the sides.

A bright red fox was leaping toward a mouse; the mouse, jaw full of seeds, was darting towards a hole in the ground. Above the life and death race was great bird or prey, waiting for its chance. Oblivious to the scene around it, a squirrel was hunting around in the underbrush for a fallen nut. Though he would not remain so oblivious for long, for the artist had captured a cat, with only its ears and tail poking above the grass, watching.

I stood in front of the machine, basking in the ferocious scene of a tranquil forest. Putting my hand to the metal, I tried to make out the title, but with no luck; too many scratches had marred the surface. Yet the metal was warm to my touch; the machine was no wreck. Walking around to the front soft glow emanated from the display, advertising its readiness to accept coins. I dug around in my pocket for something to feed it, but found only a pair of nickels. With a sigh I stepped back to take one last look at the wondrous machine and saw an even more wondrous sight. Impossibly the machine was made for nickels rather than the quarter.

I slipped a nickel into it, hearing the satisfying click of metal on metal, a sound I had heard so little of recently. The display was dim, but the pixilated graphics still filled the screen and wandered through my vision. A line of animals appeared around the edge with an arrow at the top. I pulled on the joystick, and saw the procession rotate. I placed the mouse at the top, maybe I could help him evade the hungry fox that the box's artist had left salivating over him. As I depressed the button, as strange burning pain stabbed into my hand holding the joystick. As if shocked, my grip failed and was thrown backward hitting my head against the brick wall behind me and blacking out.

A small mouse ran over a rough fabric hill, there was an interesting odor coming from it. The source soon came to his sight, a treasure trove of nuts. No shells, just the nourishing nut. Stuffing his mouth the small rodent scampered off the cloth in search of a place to store his fortune; a break in the brickwork caught his eye. Back to the hill, an area with a softer fiber, and already worn in places. A few tugs and a large segment tore off in his teeth.

The mouse settled down in his crack; warmth, food, security and above all happiness.