PlayStation memory card with MEMORIES banner

Their dad had taped the box labels in capitals, KITCHEN, LOFT, DAD'S TOOLS, and nothing for the cupboard under the stairs where the console sat with its cables coiled like sleeping snakes. Nell blew into the connector the way they always had, a ritual neither of them had questioned since they were small. The screen flickered to the blue menu. Slot one held a racing game with a save called 'BEST LAP 1:42'. Slot two held a file named after a cat that had died years before, with a tiny pixelated animal asleep beside a row of sunflowers.

Ollie sat on the bottom stair with his knees up. 'Delete it, then,' he said, but he didn't mean it, and Nell knew because he kept watching the little animation loop. The house echoed. Somewhere outside, a van reversed with a beep that went on too long.

Nell copied the cat file onto the card in her pocket, not because she needed it but because it seemed rude to leave it behind. Then she held the card up to the window, and the light came through the grey plastic. 'Right,' Ollie said. 'Let's go.' They walked out with the console under his arm and the cupboard door hanging open behind them, and the last thing she saw was the pale rectangle on the wallpaper where the telly had been, still showing the shape of everything they had watched.