Sorry
I play blue and you play yellow. It is a sunny June morning when we start the game, counting and sliding and running to safety, only to be knocked from our progress by the card that has caused us to lose so many times before.
Sorry.
We agreed that if we lose another game we’ll retire completely. We’ll shove the box in the back of the closet or donate it to Goodwill. It has caused us too much trouble.
But that’s another game entirely.
Almost around the board now, and something kicks, two little somethings, for the first time. We aren’t supposed to gloat when things are looking up, or we’ll be back where we started in no time at all. But elation gets the best of you, and you smile.
I am afraid we will lose because of this, but I am wrong.
We climb up into our safe zones and it’s over, we have won. But someone else is playing too, someone who doesn’t like rules, and so the game is not over just yet.
It isn’t fair.
We are exhausted when it’s over, but relieved to be done playing now. We will give that horrible game away, so that someone else can try to win and we can keep our prizes. But after we got up from our chairs and you told me it was time and then, after what seemed like my whole life had passed, we came home to silence after the funeral and we saw the card on the table.
Sorry.
For Audrey and Gracie
Hannah Linkowsky is a second-year Early Grades Prep major in the Honors College with minors in Spanish, Dance Performance, and Civic + Professional Leadership.HL977843@wcupa.edu.