Song: Everybody Wants to Rule The World -Lorde
Word Count- 1271
As children, Sri and I used to joke of the day any neighbouring nation would dare to declare war on Caribi. "Strength in metals," everyone waltzed around repeating over and over, smugly. Metal. Metal coins. Metal machines. Metal weapons. Their spawn running rampant in the streets with emptied hand guns, gunning down slaves with imagined bullets. Our bronze skin the symbol of worldly power, theirs, dusty and muddied, of poverty.
Our street games consisted of 'Hide and Seek', 'Capture the Rapture', and 'Defend Carib', I don't know who came up with these awful names. No one ever used them as a whole, only as 'Hide', 'Rapture', and 'Defence'. Hide and seek was the most basic, the only danger being having to stay stiff in the same spot for far too long. Sri was the best at this, choosing the darkest places. I, the most dangerous.
Rapture involved each team tossing coloured disks into the other team's area, a line dividing. The first team to have collected all of the discs shouted Rapture and would throw them at the other team's basket. First to ten in wins. Sri's sister lost her eye playing this. I catch myself staring at the gaping hole from time to time, but have never gotten the courage to ask myself.
Defence could take more than an eye. Sometimes played with blanks, sometimes played with real bullets. Not the sort which could kill you in one hit, maybe four, but never one. One may leave you limping, bloodied, bruised. It all depended on the type of bullets your opponent could afford. When playing the lowest class, my team would simply leave with bumps and scratches. But after playing the guys from my neighbourhood, I'd spend the later part of my night biting a rolled towel and removing metal bits from my throbbing, bloodied skin.
Bets were placed before every game of Defence. The winning team divided their earnings and left, loudly at first, but then silently when reaching the outskirts of the city. Even Sri, the most nervous bastard, rejoiced every victory.
The game was played mostly on weekends, our parents having little to no idea where we had run off to, but had been stopped once our strong little country encountered days of frightening tomorrow's. Bombs fell from the sky every morning. Parents stayed home from work. Children from school. Our metal-makers set sights to armor of sorts. Whether it be for the city, the country, the armies, or for individuals themselves, I do not remember.
Our slaves, muddied, dusty, were liberated. The youngest, orphans by our doing, stayed, though not by their own will. Hyn, our twelve year old Harigi slave knew we had hidden him away as his people's armies marched in to collect and free. He said nothing, did nothing. His friends were aware of it as well, and tensions grew as they did. War began, the men left. Sri and I, thirteen and twelve, stayed behind.
Our city remained shambled a year later. Our economy in worse shape. I don't think of economy as a thing, as much as I do a feeling, much like war, much like our games.
Our mothers and sisters had taken to the metal-working factories to make weapons for our men. The women had proven to be much faster and more skillful than any of the men. I hoped once, and if, the men returned that these woman could keep their factory positions.
With the women gone until nightfall, occasionally after, the younger boys were left to train. No one knew exactly how long it would be until our scattered little countries might reach an agreement of sorts. Might as well train the youth, in case it stretched on for far too long. We ran miles around the city in the morning, lifted in the afternoon, assisting with the factory work, and were left to do as we pleased in the evening.
Sri didn't adapt to this as well as I had. One evening, while laying on a pile of stones he turned to me and said, "Mihn, I don't understand any of this."
"Of what?" I replied.
"This conflict. How our families horded these slaves, despite other region's warnings. They knew Harigi would attack but did nothing to prevent it. Now we all sit around like this, wondering which side will give up first."
I let his words hang in the polluted air for a bit before saying, "You're right." He was. And that was really all I could say. If people like Sri would take over the world, war might be an avoidable thing, a negotiable thing. I opened my mouth to go on, hoping to find words to follow up with his strong statement, when we heard footsteps from behind.
"Stay still!" One shouted, holding an object.
By reflex, we turned our heads to view our attacker. Hyn. He was not alone, alongside him stood five other, former, or perhaps still, abandoned slaves.
"What do you want?" Sri's voiced echoed down the rock hill.
"We're taking you captive," The one with the handgun said.
"Hyn, really?" I half-sarcastically, half-pleadingly asked.
Hyn spoke up, "We won't hurt you, Mihn, we just want a fair trade. Your lives or your army's money, you'll be okay."
"I bet you don't even have bullets in that thing." Sri hit me to shut up. The handgun Harigi slave aimed for my forehead. "I have a fair idea."
"Which is what?" Another with a handgun asked, curiosity leaking.
"We play a game. A simple game. And if you catch us, well, we're yours. Buy us, sell us, trade us, kill us. But..if we win, you leave. And also, I'd like your gun. Fair?"
The six took a minute to discuss it, Sri looked fearful, clasping his hands and squeezing as if praying.
"Okay," Hyn said finally.
The name of the game is simple. "Hide, Rapture, and Defence". Give us five minutes to hide before you seek us. We're allowed to have disks or any materials we find along the way to our hiding spot. When you think you see one of us, scream 'Rapture!', we'll come out. Maybe. And you're allowed one shot each at us. One. If you hit us, you win. If you miss all five times and we escape, we win." I explained confidently. Sri's toothy grin disappeared as he measured the odds of our victory. But we never lost.
"Three, two one," The cockiest one announced. Sri froze, taking a second to take off behind me. We ran, ducking under pipes, bombed remains, and climbing up broken ladders until Sri found the perfect place; the closet of an old office building. The two of us waited. An hour passed, I became antsy. Sri stayed put.
Finally, I gave in to peak out the door. Hyn stood outside, gun in hand, silently. A shiver ran down my spine, he had been watching this entire time, waiting for one of us to come out.
"Hyn, no" I whispered. Too late. Hyn's blistered fingers clicked twice, first at Sri, then myself. Hyn's bullets were different than any we had ever played with. They stung, you didn't feel it at first. I would have sworn he had missed had so much bloody not been present. The women had done too well of a job crafting the guns and bullets.
'We'll die before we reach the city.' Sri's bloodshot eyes said.
Hyn did not see these words, only his arriving comrades who exchanged. "We won! We won!'s.
Just this once, Sir and I lost.
