🟨 Part 7: One Crown, Two Names
The morning after Maria’s message, Derek Hanley sat at the kitchen table with a pen in his hand and a half-eaten slice of toast on his plate.
The toast had gone cold. The pen hadn’t moved in ten minutes.
He was trying to write a letter.
Not an email. Not a message. A letter — on paper. Something real. Something that could be folded and held, tucked away in a drawer or taped to a hospital wall.
He’d started it three times already.
“Dear Luis…”
“Hey old friend…”
“We didn’t get to finish…”
But none of them felt right. Every opening line carried too much or too little.
In the end, he pushed the pen away and stood up.
Maybe it wasn’t words Luis needed now.
Maybe it was something else.
He pulled the tournament scorecard from the desk drawer — the one from 1983.
Derek had kept it all these years, hidden in a box of old bills and insurance forms like a buried confession. He smoothed the paper out carefully and ran a finger over Luis’s childhood doodle of the Champion’s Crown.
Then he did something he hadn’t done in 40 years.
He drew a second crown.
Right beside the first. Not smaller. Not lighter.
Identical.
That afternoon, he walked into town — past the shuttered arcade, the pharmacy that now sold only memory foam pillows and blood pressure monitors, and the post office that still smelled like cardboard and lost time.
He mailed the scorecard and the framed photo of them together to:
Maria Alvarez
Albuquerque General Hospital
Room 314 — Luis Alvarez
He included a sticky note.
“He earned this crown.
And I finally drew it in the right place.
– Derek.”
When he got home, he sat down and opened the emulator again.
He loaded Combat. Let the tanks blink onto the screen. Let the hum settle into the room.
He didn’t play.
He just let it run.
He watched as the blue tank — Luis’s — rolled forward.
And then, with his own keys, he turned the green tank — his tank — into a corner and didn’t move.
Letting Player Two have the field.
Letting go.
Later that evening, Maria sent another message.
“He’s still unconscious, but they say he’s stable. I taped the picture and crown by his bed.”
A second message followed.
“He smiled in his sleep.”
Derek exhaled.
He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath all day.
That night, he stood by the fireplace again.
Claire’s locket still hung there. This time, he opened it.
Inside was the photo of her as a young woman — wind in her hair, mischief in her eyes.
He held it in one hand, the Atari joystick in the other.
He whispered to them both:
“I think I finally played a good game.”
🟨 Part 8: A New Challenger
Three days passed.
The game screen remained quiet. Derek no longer waited for messages with clenched nerves — but he checked, gently, like you check the mailbox when you’re not really expecting anything but still hope for a letter.
He found comfort in the silence now.
Luis was still here. That was enough.
Then, just before noon on a rainy Thursday, the landline rang.
The landline, of all things. Only telemarketers and old friends used it anymore.
“Hello?”
“Is this Mr. Derek Hanley?” The voice was soft, young, uncertain.
“Yes, speaking.”
“This is Maria. Luis’s daughter. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
“No, not at all.” He pulled a chair closer. “Is he…?”
“He’s awake,” she said, and Derek felt his eyes close in quiet gratitude. “Weak. But awake. The nurses said he kept asking about his joystick. We told him it was safe.”
Derek laughed.
“Sounds like him.”
Maria continued, “We read him your note. Showed him the crown. He nodded. Tried to speak but couldn’t yet. He just smiled.”
Derek didn’t know what to say. The past was full of noise, but this moment was made of stillness and meaning.
“He wanted me to ask you something,” Maria said after a pause. “Something important.”
“All right.”
“He wants you to teach me.”
A blink. “Teach you?”
“To play. Combat. The old Atari game. He said, and I quote, ‘He’s the only one who ever beat me, and it’s time she learns why.’”
Derek chuckled. “I haven’t taught anyone anything in years.”
“You taught my dad how to lose gracefully. That’s more than most coaches ever manage.”
Silence passed like a warm draft through a cracked window.
He straightened up, suddenly more awake than he’d been in months. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it. But only if she’s got fast thumbs.”
“I type 80 words a minute,” Maria said. “I think I’m qualified.”
The next night, they set up a video call.
Maria looked nothing like Luis and everything like him. Same flicker of mischief in the eyes. Same sharp timing. Same half-smile when she landed her first hit.
Derek let her win the second round. Then didn’t let her win the third.
By the end of the hour, they were tied — 5 to 5 — and laughing like family.
“You know,” she said, sitting cross-legged in front of her laptop, “I didn’t really get why this was so important to him. I mean, old pixels, two blocks shooting at each other. But now…”
“But now?”
She smiled.
“Now I see it wasn’t about the tanks.”
“No,” Derek said, sipping tea. “It never was.”
Later that night, he received another message.
This one was from Luis.
Just three words.
“You passed it.”
That was it.
No period. No punctuation.
But it hit Derek harder than any high score.
He powered down the computer, walked to the mantel, and lit the candle Claire used to keep by the window.
He didn’t pray, not in the traditional sense.
But he closed his eyes, pressed his hand over his heart, and whispered into the quiet:
“I kept the crown warm for you.”
