The Yellow Cartridge

The den of a ranch house in San Jose on a bright Saturday morning in March, low sunlight through a sliding glass door across an orange shag carpet, on the carpet a flat, almost square game console about thirty centimetres across in dark brown-black plastic with a raised rear lid and a narrow plain silver strip on top, at front left four pale square buttons, one yellow, at front right a hinged flap over the cartridge slot, a hand pushing a flat yellow cartridge into the slot, two long ribbed black hand controllers with mushroom-shaped caps on coiled black cords, behind them a wooden television set glowing with soft coloured bars.