Absolute Power Corrupts

"Fuck THIS!" James barked to the TV screen, nearly launching the antique video game controller across the room.

He'd lost AGAIN in what seemed a completely arbitrary manner. It didn't help that he hadn't slept much lately. Summer break was nearing an end and he wanted to drink up every minute of freedom before his senior year began which meant long nights of video games or endlessly trolling through the Internet. It didn't help that he and his sister had shared an 18th birthday just the other day and he was still reeling from the bottle of whiskey his friend had stolen for them to share.

He stared down at the controller in his hands, still surprised he was playing this dumb game. He had a perfectly good playstation 4 upstairs in his room with nearly three times as many buttons as this relic. His bedroom
TV was massive, but here he was playing in the basement on the only TV that seemed to accept the ancient video game system he'd found in the attic.

It was almost a year ago he found it up there. Tasked with cleaning up the overstocked storage area he came across a box buried deep in the back marked "Brother Jim's things" and excessively sealed in packing tape. A clear challenge to any rebellious seventeen year old James didn't hesitate in abandoning his cleaning duties to tear open the package.

Most of the items were actually garbage. Newspaper clippings, weird knick knacks that looked like they came from a dollar store. There were a few photos of varying quality, the only one that stood out being of an older man posing with a much younger girl. And while the older man looked to be a bit raggedy, maybe even homeless the young girl was beautiful, stunningly so. She COULD have been his daughter James figured before digging deeper.

At the very bottom of the box was yet ANOTHER box this one wrapped as well. James tore it open revealing a black box as big as a milk crate. It had no lines, seams or any kind of breaks and appeared to be completely sealed save for two wires that ran from either end. One terminated in an electrical plug, the other in a equally black three button controller. Besides it was a book titled "Seeds of the Mind: Unlocking Our True Potential" by J.Russel.

James lugged the book and game console out of the attic with some difficulty (the console was FAR heavier than it looked). Asking his dad about it proved fruitless. His dad didn't even know the box had been there. Bent over reams of excel documents busy with "month end figures" he had only muttered that the J.Russel in question was his uncle, James' great uncle, and had been the black sheep of the family. Everyone thought he was crazy, and a bit of an addict.

After trying to connect the console just about everywhere in the house the only TV that seemed to work was the old Panasonic tube set in the basement.

The console only played one game, with no title. Turning the system on booted immediately to the first board, with no explanation. The game was infuriating but James found himself unable to totally give it up. The rules of each level would change randomly, as would the difficulty. A challenge that took him weeks to finish once, would be the work of minutes next time. And with each he was sent back to the first level.

The book that accompanied it had nothing to do with the game though. It was a thick soft cover tome, which after briefly outlining the potential of the human mind dove into a series of exercises to "strengthen and prepare the mind". James was not much for reading so he didn't give it much thought. Until, after being stuck on level 45 for what seemed eternity he started reading it for clues. What he found was that somehow doing the exercises in the book made the game easier. Not easy by any means, but easier.

He'd read the book twice and did all the master level exercises every day. He knew he was close to the end of the game. This most recent defeat was just a setback. It was just after noon, his parents would be gone for hours, his sister was still asleep(and wouldn't bother him to begin with) and he had no plans.

With a reaffirmed resolve he picked up the controller and started again.