The Game

The game began innocently enough, three girls and three boys playing tag on the playground at recess, desperately needing to race around dodging reaching arms, a longed-for break from sitting tall in wooden seats attached to wooden desks where the tops open and inside lie pencils sharpened and notebooks blank and wanting. It was only a game, one girl explained later. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. The teacher who watched them didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, at first. The other girls and boys were happy to be stretching their legs and breathing deeply, gasping for air and dodging enemies. Staying mobile was all they were thinking about, the girls and boys on the playground. The other children were sitting reading, or in small groups giggling, or watching the tag game from the sidelines. But when one girl swatted her mile-long pigtail at another girl, hands clasping momentarily, one boy watching from across the blacktop at the flirting laughing girls, clinging to each other, he yelled. All eyes were on him. His body shook and he raced toward them. The girls ran in opposite directions, hands tearing from each other, fingers still wanting. He chose one and followed and around and around they went dodging the basketball poles and potholes in the pavement edges. He caught her and threw her down. Another boy joined, for it was only a game. Soon all three boys were piled on top and the other two girls stood watching, braid ends in mouths sucking nervously. The teacher was reading; even the yell hardly brought her eyes up, it was only a game. Moments later, the game was over. The girl on the bottom of the pile of three boys had smashed her head to the pavement and disappeared from the game, from the schoolyard, from this life.