The Six Switches

The final assembly hall of a game console maker in Sunnyvale on an autumn night shift, rows of ceiling fluorescent tubes, along an assembly table of grey steel a line of finished game consoles, each a flat black ribbed plastic case about thirty-five centimetres wide with a broad strip of wood-grain finish across its front and six small chrome toggle switches on top beside a cartridge slot, in the foreground a worker's hands fitting a black joystick with a red button and a coiled black cord into a moulded cardboard tray, workers in pale smocks seen from directly behind further down the line, every surface plain and unmarked.