The War Game

by Black, Crystal

  I got a little crazy out here. I replayed every event in my head, over and over again. And each time, it became more magnified. All the should-have-dones, should-have-saids did a little two steps forward, one jump back for me. Although, those same memories were the fuel that kept me hanging around.

  All I could really ask for was that Pearl was relatively safe, hopefully in a bed, even a cardboard one. Maybe she escaped. Maybe she found a guy, someone better than me.

  I jogged through every single memory I had of Pearl. That way, the memory didn’t decay and I could still have her. So far, I was doing a pretty good job. I still remembered stuff like it happened yesterday although it hadn’t been long. I was keeping track on a tree, scratching out ticks to mark the days but I forgot which tree I had done it on and then lost count. Then I decided not to care about how many days it has been.

  Though other parts of my memory had started to erode. Like I couldn’t remember that blonde chick’s last name. Couldn’t remember if my birthday was on the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth of August. I could hardly remember my dad’s face.

  I remembered her face though. Pearl. Not another one like it. Heart-shaped. But I was starting to forget her voice. I remembered it was rich but soft. Hard to explain but that’s how I remembered it being like.

  I remembered her. Looking at her weird book of human parts. The wristwatch around her ankle. Asking me constantly if I liked her or not. How her little hand felt in mine.

  Should have said something.

  I found myself getting closer and closer to the stars. By the means of the trees or a roller coaster, one day I will get to touch one.

  ~~~

  He thought he would sneak up behind me and get me that way. I came up around him. He heard some animal in the distance and thought it was his target. Me. He ended up shooting a penguin instead. I took a piece of broken aquarium glass and stuck it into his neck.

  I try to console myself that it was self-defense but I could have stepped out then. You know, taken my bow. Called it a night. Kicked the bucket. I could have let him end it all for me. And he would still be alive with a nice home and a fridge full of food and beer. I hear spies make loads of money, much more than gamekeepers.

  But I ended his life for me, I pushed him out. I was left here.

  If I were a game piece, I would probably be a little plastic ketchup bottle. That’s all we were. Containers filled with red stuff.

  Hell could only be relief.

  THE FINAL ROUND {Pearl}

  The soldier looked at us, walking up and down the line. There were far many more of us than the soldiers, or rather gamekeepers, but we were weak. He saw that we were weathered, with barely enough energy to hold our own bones up, let alone fight or run. We said nothing, did nothing. “Fight or flight, we will not hesitate to shoot you. When you are called, you are to go through that door immediately.” He pointed down the hall at an ornate set of doors.

  All the people that survived the attack were rounded up like chickens on a farm and loaded onto a bus. Not a school bus this time, but a city bus with the accordion thing in the middle of it and took us here. To the court house.

  The gamekeeper with the crew cut and big gun snorted, “Y’all like a pack of cards. If I tip one of you over, the rest of you will come tumbling down.”

  I think he meant to compare us to dominoes but I did not dare correct him. He might give me a bullet to the eye as a token of his appreciation.

  “Once you go through that door, you will be told what to do. I highly recommend that you do it!”

  The line moved rather quickly. After sitting in the bus for what seemed to be hours, I wished I was still there.

  I walked through (well, pushed through) the doors and into what appeared to be a courtroom. The gamekeeper had my hands behind my back like a human handcuff. There were a few rows of wooden benches in the back. There was a jury box to the right. “Get in the back row,” he said, as he pushed me forward. Hard. I think he made my clavicle pop out.

  There was the man that was before me, standing in the center of the room, in front of the judge. Next to the judge, where a witness would normally be, was another keeper and yet another took the place of the recorder. There were three keepers placed at each door. Two doors on the opposite sides of the room, and one at the front right corner. I sat and waited, wondering why there were so many keepers in this room.

  The short man was in the front and a taller man there with him. I didn’t recognize him from the camp. They were facing the front, so I could not read the expressions on their faces. I could not read nor determine what could be the outcome of my fate.

  Then the door opened.

  It was John, being trailed by yet another gamekeeper.

  I think he may have recognized me before I fully realized that it was him who walked through that door.

  He was taller, much taller. His hair was even longer. I felt a little smug noticing he was bigger than most of the keepers, except the one with the crewcut. He mouthed a “hello” to me. I was too stunned to return it.

  His hands were in handcuffs; the soldier unlocked them. He was led to the back row, near where I was. He sat down where he was told, rubbing his wrists.

  “Okay, we may proceed.”

  The soldier standing next to the tall man turned around and smiled. The other man, the one with a gun, turned around to face both the men.

  The judge handed the soldier a pack of black playing cards, except these cards were very thick and big.

  “For those of you who are on deck, this is how the game is played. The player on your right,” the judge waved his hand towards the short man, “picks the top card and holds it up, announces his number. Then the player to your left, picks the next top card and announces it. The cards are numbered one through ten. The player with the lowest numbered card loses. Everything. If there should be an instance that both cards hold the same number, we bring in three more players. Each new player will receive a card. The person last in line turns their card over and the team with the lowest number loses. And then we draw again. It is a fairly simple game to play.”

  The short man picked up the top card, his hands shaking to a comical proportion, like a cartoon. He wavered a moment, like he was catching himself from fainting, before touching the top card. He turned it over, I could see the number from where I’m sitting.

  “Hold it up now, announce it,” the judge commands.

  “A one...it’s a one,” the man cries.

  A big black underlined one.

  The other man, somehow solemnly, picked up the next card on top of the pile when the soldier drew near.

  He held it up, took a moment before announcing, “A 5. I have a 5,” he says apologetically to the man with the one but at the same time, making sure that there was no mistaking that he is holding the larger numeral.

  “All right then. Carl?”

  The soldier with the gun, whom I assumed to be Carl, took his gun and shot that short man in the head. His body stayed standing for a few seconds and then it fell.

  A soldier led the tall man out of the courtroom. The man was walking steadily but I could tell that he was falling inside himself because I felt myself falling inside myself.

  I couldn’t and still can’t, fully comprehend what just happened. I just saw a man murdered. My thoughts were on the short man. He was just alive. How could he be dead now? That was so much to take in within a matter of seconds that I didn’t take in the next fact, which was that John or I were about to die.

  The judge pounded on the desk with a gun he took from underneath. “Next on deck!” he boomed.

  The keeper poked my back with his gun; he had been trying to get my attention. I got up, it was hard. I weighed about a thousand pounds.

  The other keeper lead John to the front, I followed behind. He looked back. I still remember the look on his face but I couldn’t analyze it then in that one second. He looked at me with concern. He was thinking about me when I couldn’t think abou
t anything other than my own livelihood.

  We stood in our places; there were duct-taped “X”s on the blood-stained floor.

  Two other players were shuffled in and sat down behind us. It was right about then that I started to understand the situation.

  I didn’t want to but my heart knew that this would be the last time I might see John. I didn’t recall any stupid random human anatomy facts this time. When I was sitting back at the bench, I felt like perhaps someone would come in and rescue us. That we would both be let go. But that was only in storybooks. Storybooks lied all the time, or they told a better version of the truth. There was no castle. There were no white horses. There were no mice who could sew a ballgown, only giant rats who would eat through the sheets.

  I looked to John, I felt drops of water dripping onto my shirt but I didn’t care about something as insignificant as that. I looked to him for what I should do. He looked back, trying to calm me down with his eyes.

  The judge must have been talking because now there was this big card in my hand that I didn’t remember taking. I still find that odd. I didn’t ever remember taking that card. How could I have done something to lock in my fate so absentmindedly?

  I took it and flipped it over. A big, fat underlined 8. “Eight.” Was that my voice?

  The keeper walked over to John, and he picked up the top card. He looked at it but I couldn’t tell if it was higher or lower than mine. He always could tell a lie with a straight face. John overcompensated by not blinking at all. Blinking gave you away. Ears turning red would earn you a bullet if you were interrogated. That was the one thing I wished I was really good at. Lying.

  He lifted the card up slowly, first only revealing his fate only to himself. Then he flipped the card over and held it up from the bottom.

  “A 6,” he announced.

  “All ri”

  Carl already took his shot.

  Even the judge jumped in his chair. “Yes, thank you, Carl.”

  John lay on the floor. I knew he wasn’t there anymore but that didn’t stop me from running over and draping my arms over him. When they came over to escort me out, I held onto John. My hands were gripping him, not letting him go. Blood soaked his shirt and the ground. I tried to convince myself that it was just ketchup again. But if it was just ketchup, why was I crying? Why was I grabbing his shirt as they dragged the body away? I was an awful liar. His eyes still wide open. Liars tended to overcompensate by not blinking so I closed his eyes. I grabbed the card out of his hand and then they took me.

  I didn’t remember much after that. I’m sure that I screamed, likely cried. They dragged me out, taking me through that door in the corner. They threw me on the floor in the hallway and let me go. They let me go because I had won the game.

  There was an exit sign but it didn’t sing out to me like it should have.

  I was still on the floor, where they left me. I held my card, the big black underlined eight, and I held his. I turned it right side up. He’d let me win, again. Just like when we played hangman.

  I turned it around

  and then I knew the answer to my question. He did love me.