Lights hung dim and low
in the arcade where the
air reeked of low hums
and the methodical tap-tap
tapping of buttons, eroded
concave by the ceaseless
push-push pushing of
long, pale hands.
By the door, where the
outside light could find its
way in, stood rows and rows
of abandoned machines, proudly
coming in every hue ever
discovered by man.
Red
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Purple
Black
Violet
Fuchsia
White
The evolution of the human eye
having ceased after the release
of the famous Nintendo Entertainment System.
Further back, behind the shadowed
sentinels and finely layered spider silk,
crouched and hunched, their backs and bodies
a contortionist’s nightmare,
exist the denizens of that
poorly lit space.
They make no noise other than the
faint rasping of their lungs, a quiet
plea for release, and the screams of
pain they wrench from the bruised and bloodied
figures flickering across the sea
of screens.
The wash of those portals
are the suns of that cramped cave,
each night being reset,
the inhabitants staying
as they are. No change,
just eyes closed.
Soon enough their days
will reignite.
Behind the back, there is one last corner,
a jammed space that
but a few approach.
There the rectangles of
tightened spring and floating spheres
are sent. An exile, not so
devastating as to be seen upon the threshold
in the light of day,
but part of an acknowledged past,
remembered, but no longer wanted.
Of all the stations that
have been sent there to their
demise, only one still stands
lit with the light of life.
In front of its clattering
whirrs, whizzes, and whirls
will stand sometimes one,
sometimes two, depending on the time of day
and the weight of
the quarters in their pockets,
and they will watch little
planets on their ever-changing trajectories
coming too close to the sun
and being smashed away.
By Christian Cassidy-Amstutz