🟨 Part 3: Practice and Polaroids
Saturday crept closer like a slow, ticking metronome.
Derek Hanley spent the days leading up to it in his living room — lights low, blinds drawn, Atari emulator glowing like a time machine on the flatscreen.
The photo of him and Luis, now upright in a wooden frame, watched over him like a ghost of simpler days.
He practiced quietly. No war cries, no swearing. Just the steady click of arrow keys and a silence so complete it rang in his ears. His fingers weren’t what they used to be, but neither was the world.
At 70, Derek moved slower, thought longer, and found meaning in the small things: the way the tank sputtered on-screen, how the pixelated dust kicked up behind its tracks, and how each sound seemed to echo from 1983 straight into his living room.
The attic had coughed up more than just the console.
In a shoebox beneath the old Christmas lights, he found a dozen photos and an envelope marked “Luis – Summer ‘83.”
Inside were handwritten score sheets, a half-folded map of their imaginary tournament brackets, and one yellowing scrap that read:
“Final Match: Derek vs. Luis — Saturday, 4PM — Winner takes crown.”
Below that, Luis had doodled a cartoon crown labeled “CHAMPION OF EVERYTHING.”
Derek ran his fingers over the paper.
He remembered that afternoon in excruciating detail. His palms sweating. Luis leaning in too close. Claire — then just his new girlfriend — watching from the stairs.
And the moment he realized he was about to lose.
He still didn’t know why he’d done it.
Just a slight tap on the cartridge. Barely noticeable. Just enough to freeze Luis’s tank for two seconds.
It won him the game.
It cost him the friendship.
Luis had packed up that weekend. His family moved without much warning — a job, an opportunity, a better school district in New Mexico. The goodbye was rushed. Awkward. Full of promises to write that neither kept.
And Derek had carried the victory like a medal… and a curse.
On Friday, the day before the rematch, Derek drove into town.
He needed to feel the outside world again — the squeak of a café chair, the way sun hit the window of the old game store on Birch Street.
The place was boarded up now.
Nothing lasted. Not Claire. Not arcades. Not even the places where boys became legends.
But at the grocery store, he saw a boy — maybe nine or ten — staring at a Nintendo Switch screen, swiping like mad.
Derek smiled and approached him gently.
“Ever hear of Combat?”
The boy glanced up, unsure. “Is that a new game?”
“No,” Derek said, chuckling. “It’s the oldest kind.”
He didn’t bother explaining. Some things you had to live to understand.
That night, he stood by the fireplace and looked at the clock.
Claire’s locket still hung there, unopened. He hadn’t touched it since the funeral.
They’d met in 1982. She’d watched his games with half-amused eyes, calling it “boy stuff” but always being there, cheering from the doorway.
She was the first person he told about the cheat.
She just smiled and said, “You’ll tell him one day. When it matters.”
The house creaked as he sat back down in front of the screen.
The emulator loaded up.
He opened a text window and typed to Luis:
“I still have the scorecard. The one where you drew the crown.”
Luis replied:
“Ha. I was sure I was gonna win that day.”
“You would’ve,” Derek wrote. “If I hadn’t… knocked the cartridge.”
A long pause.
The blinking dots started, stopped, then started again.
Finally:
“I figured.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. That’s why I drew a second crown the night before. One for me. One for you.”
Derek swallowed hard.
“So you knew?”
“Of course. But I also knew why.”
Another pause.
“You didn’t want me to leave thinking you’d lost. So you made sure you didn’t.”
Derek leaned back, overwhelmed.
The air felt thick, but not heavy.
“I never said I was sorry.”
Luis answered almost instantly.
“You didn’t have to. You’re showing up tomorrow. That’s enough.”
🟨 Part 4: Player Two Has Joined the Game
Saturday night arrived dressed in silence.
Derek Hanley had dusted the living room, brewed his best tea — chamomile, Claire’s favorite — and laid out the old scorecard beside the monitor like a sacred relic.
The photo of him and Luis sat propped on a stack of 1980s comics. The lights were dim. The curtains drawn. And his heart…
His heart hadn’t pounded like this since prom night.
He logged in ten minutes early.
The emulator client flashed:
Waiting for Player Two…
He tapped the keys just to hear them click. His knuckles cracked without asking. The tea steamed beside him, untouched.
Then — a soft ping.
PixelPanther1989 has entered the game.
Derek exhaled, hands slightly trembling. A new message popped up.
Luis: “Still remember the rules?”
Derek: “First to 10. No ricochet. No excuses.”
Luis: “No cheating?”
Derek: “Swear on Claire’s ghost.”
That earned a string of laughing emojis.
The game loaded.
Pixel tanks blinked onto the map — one blue, one green.
No music. Just the old pulsing hum of digital warfare.
Derek’s hands moved with a rhythm he hadn’t used in decades.
The first round was clumsy.
His tank turned too wide. Luis’s shot whizzed past his cannon and slammed into him before he could react. The green tank exploded in pixels.
Score: Luis – 1 | Derek – 0
Derek chuckled aloud.
He hadn’t even warmed up, and already he was behind.
Luis: “Still got it.”
Derek: “Still slow to start.”
The second round was different.
Derek waited, let Luis come to him. When the blue tank turned the corner, Derek made a tight loop and fired — one clean shot.
Boom.
1–1.
He leaned back in his chair. His grin surprised him. He hadn’t smiled like that in a long time. Not the kind people wear at cookouts or church, but something pure — rooted in childhood, in rivalry, in remembering.
He heard Claire’s voice in his head:
“You look like a twelve-year-old.”
He whispered, “You should see me now.”
They played on.
2–2.
3–2.
3–3.
Each shot was a memory. Each tank, a younger self.
The game wasn’t just a game anymore — it was a bridge.
Derek remembered the time they built a cardboard arcade in his garage, charging neighborhood kids a quarter to watch them play.
He remembered biking to Luis’s house, joystick in his backpack, hair soaked from the Indiana summer rain.
He remembered Luis crying the day before he moved. They never said goodbye properly. Too proud. Too young.
Now here they were. Seventy and still playing. Still boys, somewhere beneath the skin and time.
Luis: “You still take deep breaths before firing?”
Derek: “You still tap the controller three times before moving?”
Luis: “Some habits die hard.”
Derek: “Some don’t die at all.”
They paused between rounds.
Derek’s tea had gone cold. His joints ached. But none of it mattered.
What mattered was that Luis was still there. Still sharp. Still laughing. Still alive.
Round seven.
Derek made a move too early. Luis caught him in the open. Pixelated explosion.
Luis – 4 | Derek – 3
He sighed.
Derek: “Guess I’m still chasing you.”
A moment passed. Then:
Luis: “You were never behind. You just didn’t know where you were headed.”
That one stuck.
They took a short break. Five minutes. Just enough time for Derek to stretch, refill his tea, and let the past breathe.
When he came back, he saw a photo had been sent.
A real photo.
Luis — older now, gray in the beard, glasses sliding down his nose. Holding a joystick with one hand, a hospital bracelet still faintly visible on the wrist.
He looked tired. But happy.
Alive in the way only memories and second chances can make a man feel.
Derek smiled. Took his own photo in return. No filter. Just the truth.
He typed:
“Let’s finish what we started.”
Luis replied: “Let’s write a better ending this time.”
