Lachlan Renwick :: D10m

Catch me if you can, that's a fun Game right?

You used to think so, back then at least. Out in that small house south of the aluminum alley. That's what you all used to call it. That short street of stone, cracked and chipped, covered all up in broken barrels leaking all sorts of stuff. One time, when you were playing, you came across a rabbit frozen in a pond of black. You tried to pick its fragile frame up and out of the oil, but the fur freshly frothed in the slippery substance made it impossible to get a good grip. You started crying, rubbing your eyes all the while covering your face in a layer of the languished liquid. Your brother caught you quickly enough as he picked you up from your perished place.

"Aw Pix, what've you done to yourself?"

He questioned as he carried your small shape back to the small house for a bath. Yet, all you could see was the shape of the rabbit on that still surface of night. You miss that game, that house, that alley, and you miss that brother. But in life that game is too hard to play, you never know when someone is trying to catch you. No, that's not true, someone is always trying to catch you.

That was when it started, the new game: the Quiet Game.

You didn't like that one much either, it made you feel scared a lot. Everybody was always home. The shutters were pulled together so tightly that only the smallest sliver of sunlight would creep across the dining room table. You would always sit there when it came, it's iridescent illumination an escape to your hazel eyes. Except for the days when the bangs outside were loud. Ma would tell you to stay in your room and play the Quiet Game with your sister, a very important Game she would always say. That was always scary, when the house would shake and your sister would cry but you would have to wrap your tiny tender arms around her while whispering a lullaby.

Playing the Game was better than when you lost it though.

The knocks on the door were so loud that they showered dust down from the shutters. You were so quiet, just like Ma and Pa were telling you to be, but the door still came crashing open. You remember Ma telling them folks the same things she told you and your siblings. How y'all ain't got no place in conflict. Never raise your fist, lead with compromise. Yet, they came in anyway and Pa sent you, Lillith, and Ma away to Uncle Wynn's while he and Lewis stayed at the house with them District soldiers.

That's when you started playing the Game of Tag.

That one was much shorter though, only a couple days. You would race along the soot stained streets ducking behind barrels and bins, hiding from screams and shouts. You would run from Uncle Wynn's out by the daffodil field, more like patch, back to Pa and Lewis. You were good at that Game. A small little shadow slipping through the streets. You would tell Ma that they were okay and she would be happy. But one day you made Ma cry.

You had just come out from the corner of aluminum alley. You watched the shape of Pa arguing with them rebels through the window just before you saw the white. In that moment, as bullets broke through the air and flames fell from the sky, you were a petal between two smoking guns. Thrown by the wind, blown back by the explosion of that small house, everything went quiet. Ma used to say you sounded so sweet when you sang, but you laid there a little petal lost in the ash trying to sing into the silence. Even after the sound came back, your voice didn't. Ma broke just from the tears and the burn marks. Ma broke just from seeing your face.

The next Game you played was pretend: pretend to be a man.

They used to call you Pix, before the war. That's because Ma used to say you looked like a little pixie. Soft features and a small frame full of spirit. You weren't Pix after Pa and Lewis died. You were man, even if you hated it. Two years after it all ended, you started running carts at the petroleum factories. Make money like the man of the house. Provide and protect like the man of the house. That's the Game the twelve year old version of yourself played. But you can't be a good at a Game where you pretend to be something you're not.

That's when you knew you were cursed. When you came home to news of Lillith lost in crossfire of a PeaceKeeper raid. When you came home to a bottle of empty pills and no Ma. When you sat on the kitchen floor in Uncle Wynn's listening to him snore while you whistled a song to yourself. When everyone realized that there weren't any words left from you, just whistles, just memories. That's when you knew that you were always playing the wrong Game. Not to choose, not to fight, is to lose. Right?

Right?

Now, with nothing but a lullaby whistling from your lips in front of the District, you have to learn to play another Game. 

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]