Invention No. Game

It was a big house. This is important. Not a toy house or any suchlike thing. Nor was it a big house whose size wasn’t big. Nor a house who won’t play with you when you want it to. The house was playful. And it was big. And the yard: this was also big, because a hill was attached to it. All this bigness helped the game, a game that visitors play and other people play and they all enjoy.

Two young inhabitants of this house were Hike and Green. These were actually their nicknames—their dude-names. But their real names are not to be declared … for christened titles always connote a certain intelligence, that is associated with the “known” name-holders. For example, if I dubbed a stooge Isaac, all who encountered the lad may be inclined to expect isolated genius, or charisma, as they likely pair his nomenclature with Sir Physical Newton, and the son of Abraham the Israelite. So, because a false wisdom ought not to be entertained with the twosome, justly withheld are their names.

But aside from dwelling in the house, and preferring anonymity, these boys consist of personalities. Hike (who has an age or two above Green) likes fun, occasionally creating it when fun is absent; the creation, as well, involves thorough and logical pre-considerations. The logic is, naturally, only relevant to his years. He is also an exultant—to compliment. He puts uplifting words on the shelf during his conversations (and as it is observed, Green often knocks every shelf to the floor). Hike frequently boasts athletic grins, like a popular dude, even considering that his athletic abilities aren’t as boastful.

Green was so nicknamed for a reason, of course. His attire was reasonably compliant. We observe, without direct description, the fashion with which he was adorned. In fact, they say his lips turn green when he’s cold, but really it’s a contrast of the grass-stained jeans he outfits.

And now a mention of the game… Well, Hike invented it when he was looking for Green. He was just looking. He had to. Green was outdoors, doing something in a place where Hike had to look. Hike didn’t feel that so much energy ought to be wasted. He simply made a circle around the house, which didn’t expend much energy. He couldn’t find him, though, so he stopped looking and brought a chair onto the porch and sat and waited for Green to return.

Slowly, Green did. His way was unexpected, however. Hike was a little bewildered. It was from the same part of the house that he had come around a billionth of a second ago. “Yet Green wasn’t there before,” said Hike. “When did I forget seeing him?”

Green went into the house and brought another chair out to the porch and he sat down and said nothing.

“You’re very smart at hiding and things,” said Hike. “So why do you think you hid?”

“Hid?” said Green. “For how long?”

“Whiles,” said Hike. “I believe so. You’re a smart hider.”

“Not before,” said Green. “Not then.”

Neither spoke for the following while. Then, after another, there was no one when Hike looked. The chair was alone. Hike walked in another circle around the house.

When he arrived at the porch again, no one was there except Green. “But there you were when I came around,” said Hike.

“All these times weren’t the first time,” said Green. “I know because I kind of counted.”

“You probably followed me.”

“No, Hike, I don’t think so. At any rate, it makes sense not to think so: I came out here before you.”

“So you did,” Hike replied. “But I don’t trust myself to know when I came out. Maybe I was tricked and came out before people like you.”

“Yeah. You sometimes do that instead of things.”

“Well, the thing is, one of the two of us went in a circle, and then the other one either followed or made himself followed. And nobody saw the other until one of the two of us saw the other two of us.”

“I believe it, all the time.”

Once again, neither spoke, reflecting silently on the event. Then, at last, there was a scintilla of something. This looked a lot like an idea.

“It could be a game, you know,” Hike said.

“What? It could? Sitting here?”

“Well, I don’t know. But I mean the matter of seeing the others. That matter, I mean.”

“I’ve seen a lot of sources, visible as a window,” Green said. “What others do you mean?”

“A strategy of others,” Hike replied. “This game reminds you to move. Recollections like that are strategy.”

“I know. I always did. Maybe Philip wants to play.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“He’s at Philip’s house.”

“Get Philip.”

Green got him.

Philip, who was a kid, lived in the house on the hill that was attached to the other house. The other big house. Hike and Green always liked big houses. Philip didn’t.

Philip was little, like a house. Like his house. And he lived on a little hill. Philip’s size was hardly a reference to his hill, but he exploited large garments, and it made him appear at least wide. He had little of a lot; and one of those lacks of much was a resistance against headaches. When Philip was in the company of fatigue, and a sun was descending into the horizon’s charcoal, his skull located annoyances, generally when engaged in exercise, that made him retire. For such reasons, Philip usually didn’t play with the boys below his home. But he stood on the hill and watched them talk, and sometimes he pretended he was talking with them too. Occasionally he heard something they said—this was when they yelled—but this time he didn’t hear unless Green got him, which he did.

“There’s something I hear,” said Philip. “Probably a game.”

“Well, there’s a game,” said Hike. “There’s also a person who seeks.”

“I heard.” But he hadn’t. “Who else is there?”

“People that don’t seek.”

“Oh, this is a different game.”

“Yeah. Well, some people—usually not the ones who seek—go around the house, either walking or running.”

“Why? Can’t they carry each other or something?”

“Either walking or running,” Hike responded. “They probably run. Once their running is seen, the game might be done. Once they don’t become seen, the game’s good.”

“What if I think the game isn’t good?” said Philip.

“Then you go home and hear little things,” said Green.

“Do we run that way or that?”

“Neither,” said Hike. “You must choose for yourself.”

“Do we run that way or that?”

“Any,” said Hike… and they played.

They also ran. And running told them to stop, particularly Philip, whose head was annoyed through the running. So stop they did. The stopping, too, convinced him to go home; and Hike saw, as the buddy took departure, that the hill could be part of the game if runners ran up the hill and behind the trees. This multiplied the ways that a runner might go, and multiplied the fun thereby.

But it was time to sit on the porch now. The chairs were already there, so Hike waited inside of them with Green for the next time to come. This turned out to be bedtime, and after certain activities the place for waiting changed from the porch to the resting room. Here the third time was anticipated. The house was big, you remember, and there was more space for sleep to stay. And nightmares weren’t allowed in this space.

The next day joined the earliest time in breakfast, and later Hike and Green found themselves on the porch. They found themselves staring at the house on the hill and at the little kid who was coming down it. It may have been Philip.

When the fellow had succeeded in reaching the base of the pinnacle, he noticed Hike’s grin with an indication to the new boundary: the hill.