Game

• Mitchell Darton, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2010

Tentative to make a move I sit facing him. I plead and plead, but nothing seems to be working. He just won’ play. I move in but he swipes at me. The room goes quiet. Something silently stirs within me. Success? Pride? Doubt? There’s something about him now. He hasn’t changed but it wasn’t there before. The feeling blending into the mix of emotions within me like a sunset through the trees. It creeps slowly outwards. It stands out without looking odd. If it had been there before he would have seized me and thrown me back; separating us even after using all the effort, the resilience and strength I thought I never had. To retreat to square one at this point would be crazy.

The emotion leaps out sending me flying forward. It no longer belongs to the shape. A frozen wave hits me. The stirring inside me has vanished. I’m caught staring at the ground. A haze of colours and shapes blurring my vision. There seems to be nothing there, but the image is so vivid in my mind. Wiping my eyes it disappears and there’s nothing out of the ordinary. The feeling gone. I feel normal again. I look back to him as a claw catches me on the chin. We tumble around, then, a blow hits my side, but the blow didn’t come from him. It came from a two-legged bystander. I’m flung around in a wild spin, and then I scan the room. He’s nowhere to be seen. Something drifts in off the wind. Sniffing around I try to locate it. Then, there’s a noise resembling ‘Fetch’

And I’m off.