WARNING: This post contains extremely lightweight spoilers about Fallout 4. I describe a few clusters of objects that I wandered across, among the many thousands to be found. I won’t reveal anything about the game or characters beyond what’s on the TV ads.

In Fallout 4, you’re wandering Massachusetts after a nuclear war. The world is essentially depopulated except for a few bands of survivors. As you explore the abandoned cities and buildings, there are endless everyday objects lying around that scavengers haven’t yet claimed: broken coffee pots, empty cans, plastic forks, and so on. Most of this stuff is broken junk; you can scavenge it or ignore it.

Every now and then I a bunch of junk suddenly snaps together into a story for me. I think that these are deliberately staged still lifes, and they’re lovely. It’s simply wonderful to be running around an abandoned environment, and stumble into a poignant moment in the midst of dust and ruin. Here are three of my favorites so far:

* A nursery. Four cribs, empty. A changing table, piled with blankets. Against one wall, facing the cribs, a chair. Next to the chair, a low table. On the table, an ashtray. And next to it, a bottle of whiskey. And a shot glass.

* A bathroom. On the floor, in front of a sink, are the skeletal remains of a right hand. And a left hand. And lying between them, a pair of handcuffs.

* A hotel room. A man in decaying clothes is lying on a bed. His skeletal right arm is falling off the bed, the bones of his right hand resting on the floor. Next to his hand, a syringe with the last bits of a psychoactive drug. Next to him on the bed, a female mannequin. She is naked, her plastic legs still attached to her wide circular base in a standing pose. But he’s placed her lying on the bed next to him, face up. His left arm is wrapped around her.

These are just a few of the beautiful still lifes I’ve discovered. I’m very impressed by the skill with which these were assembled, they depth of the stories they communicate so eloquently, and the casual way they were included as tiny and unremarkable details in the midst of an enormous game. It would be very easy to miss these scenes, or just move past them quickly. But each time I find one of these gems, I see a glimpse of the long-gone person behind the objects, and a moment from their story. It’s beautifully done.