Games We Play

Elinor Clark

Liberty: acts as an area within which a man (x) 

Or a woman?

Yes, or a woman I suppose. Not that it’s important here, missing the point a little, my dear. If (x) can act unobstructed by others, if (x) is not prevented by (y) from doing what (x) could otherwise do, (x) is free.

I wasn’t sure. It seemed to miss an awful lot, if that was all that freedom was. A bare bones theory, no plump of flesh, just sagging skin which hung around a hollow shell. But you looked so sure. Who was I to question?

Jump above those crisscross lines, a skipping rope at school, goes up and down and up and down, leaping, dancing, laughing, prancing. But you tripped in the end, always tripped in the end. And then someone would have to pick you up and carry you away, and that would be the end of that game, but the start of another, a game not that different, not that different at all. 

He would clean up your wounds and kiss your head top and say: you must be careful, stop playing like that. How sweet to be safe, to rest, to stop jumping, that tiresome jumping. Whoever had thought that was some kind of game?

Thank you, oh thank you; a strange turn of phrase. It sank in the mouth, coughed it up as you drank, testing the motion then retching and choking, the sound far too fat to come out sounding right. But someone had decided that was what those words meant; long ago, don’t know when. So we said them. 

But how funny it was, a badly writ play, throwing sounds mouth to mouth, shape it right, get it out. Still we’d never hear much, too drowned out by our thoughts. Life far too androcentric, centred only on

Ssshh, shush, you talk too much, take a breath, my dear, get it in, hold it there.

Are you ready to play your part?

So you stroked my hair and you pulled me close, but even as you held me, still you couldn’t understand me. Even as we wound together, skin on skin and I gave you almost everything, opened up wholly, spilling thoughts in my mind, every inch of my body; still it never felt that was enough. 

Free but pretending, just playing, more games. This strange world of ours, flung from burnt ashes in rickety shapes, twisted, distorted, mistakenly made out of crumbling dust. Not realising it all would blow away. But we chose not to see it like that. Oh my love, we had fun, oh what fun we did have. And still, always free, forgotten too often, but free when we wanted, free when we chose it. Though at times I did wonder, was freedom the bit we pretended?

Either way, be it freely or not, I gave it to you, gave it all, every drip, every droplet, scraped it out, scraped me out until I was left with nothing else left. I had to do it, of course. How else could I keep you?

I think I scraped out too much. I think I am invisible now.

I wail and I cry, stamp my feet to be noticed. Pretend I am dead. That makes them look, makes them crowd round to see me, mawkish gawping, no balking, tiptoe up, tiptoe up, elongating necks to peek above the rousing throng.

Not that I’d do that, I never could do that, I’m sure I couldn’t do that.

I asked you once if you feared the dead and you barely glanced up and you laughed and you said:

Why would I fear a decomposed corpse? I could stamp it, I’d crush it, it could not fight back. 

I laughed, not sure why. The sound just pushed out, unable to hold it, unable to fold it and hide it away. Just flew through me, uninvited, not asked for at all. I couldn’t understand how you’d got it so wrong.

I imagined your body, foetid, dirty, lying there limp in a rut in the ground. I’d wipe away mud and I’d stare inside those empty holes and I’d remind you then, in that moment, of what you had said. And I’d lift up my foot and I’d stamp it and crush it and I’d show you no mercy. But that was then, this was now. Not that I ever would act out that scene. Not that you ever would know if I did.

You looked surprised at my laugh. Lips pulled down, eyebrows tugged into steep curving arcs. A spluttering fish. Oh. 

And in your eyes you looked strange, almost dead. Emotions all smothered, too thin to be there. That was the bit that scared me. At times like this, you were the sort of dead I feared.

A noetic nescience, a nascent life, empty now, so beautifully empty. We’ll fill it all soon, if we want to or not, stuff our minds full with facts, new thoughts and ideas. We don’t like them being there. But no stopping it growing, tugged out, green through brown as it chokes in wide air that goes on and goes down and never stops falling. Gets to nowhere, of course, just the other side of space. Still empty. A miracle really. Still so many things unknown to us, so many things we never will explain. Not that it would us trying.

Now we’re still playing, hide and seek. But I keep losing, can’t find you here, can’t see you where I want to see you, where I know that you’re supposed to be. 

You’ve left somehow, but I can’t seem to follow, can’t find my way out through that crumbling wall. You tumbled straight through, a ghost between bricks; but I am still stuck here, waiting for you. 

No, that’s not true, there’s a door over there. I could open it up, I could just walk away, nothing to stop me, nothing making me stay. No (y) stood in my way. This (x) was free.

Just to check, just to know that I could leave, if I wanted to leave (not that I wanted), I opened up the wooden drawer where the key was kept. How strange, how odd. It was empty. I fumbled, scrambled, scraping scratchy wood. But no key.

Even so, I was still quite sure that the door would be open. Not that I’d check, there was no point in checking, it made no difference really if it was locked or it was unlocked. Either way my freedom was intact. What did it matter, to whom did it matter, it clearly didn’t matter. I didn’t want to leave anyway.