Consolation Prize

The phone rings one evening, an evening which coincides with the opening day of hunting season. The caller ID reads “Out of State.”

Fernando picks up. “Hello, Dominion of Movies.”

A male voice on the other end says to Fernando, “Yeah, do you have any Playbox 64s?” Off in the background, Fernando can hear someone else trying and failing to stifle giggles.

Oh, alright. A prank call, is it? Fernando can deal with that and up the ante besides. “No, I'm sorry. I did just get a new shipment of Coleco-Dore Odysseys, though.” Fernando lowers his voice conspiratorially. “We're talking some serious hardware here. I mean serious.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?” It doesn't sound like the young man wants to play any more, now that he has awoken the slumbering dragon of improvisation, grown over countless sessions of D&D.

Fernando has, however, found his stride. “This is the shit used to run ballistic missile simulations, man. This is the shit used to guide ballistic missiles! Top of the line stuff I managed to get smuggled in from Best Korea, yaknowhatI'msayin?”

“Dude, we just want to rent some games.”

“Yeah, but I'm offering you something better than games. It's fucking immersion.”

The young man finally finds some improvisational fortitude and challenges Fernando's fictional assertions. “What kind of games you got for it then?”

“Oh, you know. Nuclear ballistic missile stuff and first-person shooters. You like Red Dawn? With this you can play Red Year! It also comes with Tetris.”

“The hell...?” Fernando hears the background voice say.

“Now, I can't let this go for a mere pittance, no, but I like the cut of your jib. You seem like an upstanding and trustworthy kind of guy. Come down and put down a two hundred dollar, non-refundable deposit, and I'll get you one of these state-of-the-art systems as soon as possible.”

“We could just come down and get it right there,” says the first voice, thinking he has caught Fernando in a tapestry of untruths.

This is not so. “What do you think I am, stupid? I'm not giving myself radiation poisoning by keeping the systems on-site. What do you think they run on, C batteries? Please. You come down, put in your deposit, and we will continue negotiations at that juncture. Remember, the code-phrase is, 'Uncle Rufus loves sudoku.'”

Fernando hangs up, his mission accomplished to his great satisfaction.