I never owned a Sega Dreamcast, my parents couldn’t afford it and the market was bombarded with many other consoles of different shapes and colors that interested me more than the late 90’s console with the orange swirl logo. The first gaming console I ever owned was a Gamecube. The black cube made everything better every time I pushed the grey button and the orange curve on top of it lit up. All of the yelling and constant anxiety of not being wanted would disappear for two to three hours everyday. Sick days, false sick days (after my parents had left for work and I would become restless of watching Maury), days when family came over, thousands upon thousands of tireless nights, the console greeted me each time as the screen lit up. The console never betrayed me even when I would aggressively hit the controller on the floor when I missed a jump that ended in death and a restart back to the beginning of the level for the umpteenth time. It comforted me after a long day of being teased about everything and anything: my hair, the color of my skin, my big glasses, the clothes I wore. I remain grateful to the tiny entertainment system that now resides under my bed collecting dust.
One day during my first year of high school, I went over to a friend’s house to work on our English project. She lived in a big house with marble floor. We worked on our Mice and Men compare and contrast essay for half and hour until I looked over to her small television and saw a console plugged in. The girl said it was a Dreamcast. I examined the plain system coated in retro white. My fingertips touched the console and then the odd controller. I was captivated; sudden urge crept up my back to have one.
I later went home and lied in bed with the console on my mind. How was I going to get one? I could always save up of course, but where would I get one? Why would I want a Dreamcast in this day and age? I already had a console and the latest Xbox had just been released. I stopped thinking about it and worked on some homework. I thought about how we didn’t get much work done while I was at my partner’s house after discovering the console.
“Can we play it?”
“We should work a little more on the project first, no?”
“Just for a little bit?” I asked with desire shimmering in my dark brown eyes.
She got up from her desk and sat next to me to turn it on.
“I like the name of it. Dreamcast. What does that even mean.”
“It’s pretty cool actually. My dad bought it for me for my eighth birthday. I used to play it more when I was little, but I still play with it sometimes.”
“I kind of want one now.”
“If you want…you can come over to play with it whenever,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
There was no way I was going back after our project was over. She wrote on our paper that she “didn’t care for Lennie” and that she “was glad George eliminated him.”
