FORTITUDE.

"Fortitude, darling. It's what I have and you don't. And with that," Dan said, extracting the wiimote from the box, "I will destroy you!"
Boxes filled the room. They had just moved, but due to an argument on the car ride over, the wii and TV were all set up, raring to go. Dan was standing and Claire sat on the part of the couch not covered in boxes or the lethargic dog. Janet unpacked loudly in the kitchen, words like "useless" and "nerds" somehow drifted in above the clatter of cutlery slamming into their proper places. Josh wandered the apartment in a daze, apparently confused about where his bedroom was, and then further confused about why it was the only one without a window.
"What the hell does fortitude even mean? And how does that help you with Mario Kart?" Claire asked, scratching the dog behind the ear.
"Fortitude is, like, toughness, or something," Dan said, selecting a bike for Bowser to ride on.
Josh wandered in, enthralled by something on his phone. He glanced up at the TV. "Dude, you're playing Bowser? Homeboy sucks in this game."
"Fuck you!"
"Yeah, don't mess, he has 'fortitude'," said Claire, picking out the scooter for Yoshi.
"The scooter? Y'all suck at this game," said Josh. "And what the hell does fortitude mean, anyway?"
"He's tough!" Dan yelled, then swore as the race started and Bowser spun out. "God damn it, I've lost now."
"The race just started, don't be so FUCK," she yelled as a red shell smashed into Yoshi.
Janet stalked into the make-shift living room, the arena for this epic battle, which in reality was Dan's room. They had to turn the living room into Claire's so they could all live there.
"Who broke my French Press?" she asked, livid. "Hey, nerds! Which one of you idiots broke my French Press? These are expensive, kinda."
But her anger could not distract the gamers, the race was heating up, and in this game, at any second everything could change. She stopped to watch the match. The technicolour race was mesmerizing. The upbeat music was interspersed with the swearing and yelling of the racers.
"Fuck! I lost," said Claire, putting down the controller.
"What did I tell you," said Dan, trying to coax a high-five from Janet, who had turned back to the kitchen to unpack. "Fortitude!"
"Whatever, asshole, you gonna help unpack, or will you revel in your victory a bit more?" asked Claire, trying to get up, but failing, as the dog had laid his head on her lap, and it would be heartless to expect such a dog to move.
"Unpack? But we still have three more races!"
"Janet will kill us," said Claire, as she picked the controller back up.
"So? She's always saying that."
Josh left the living room. As he passed the kitchen, Janet called out to him.
"Are they playing again?" Josh nodded. "Useless nerds."
He walked on to his room, ignoring Janet's almost-panicked call of, "Wait, aren't you going to help?"
He shut the door, turned on the light, and gazed upon his four bare walls, his mattress, his boxes, and his bare bulb dangling from the ceiling.



Okay, that didn't turn out so good. Fortitude is hard, people. But considering it's a first try, I'd say it turned out good, maybe?