"Games" - Rambling for Sunday, 24 Feburary, 2002

Once upon a time, in a little town called Nod, there was a little boy called Jemeny. Jemeny was an ordinary boy in all ways except one - Jemeny was dead.
Not UN-dead, mind, but dead. Jemeny was a little boy corpse who resided in a little room in his little house. There he would hide and hide all day, just in case Robles came.
Robles was Jemeny's best friend. Robles was tall, noble, handsome and strong of heart. If Jemeny was a girl (that was alive) then he might have had a crush on Robles. But he wasn't, and he wasn't, so he didn't.
Jemeny hid in his little room because he didn't want Robles to find him. The was no chance of that, though, for one simple reason.
Robles, also, was dead.
Not UN-dead, mind, but dead. Robles had died long ago, and his carcass was buried in Nod Eastern Cemetary, where it could lie for all eternity.
Robles was dead because he had caught a disease. It grew inside him until one day his body couldn't fight anymore, and he collapsed onto the floor.
Of course, Jemeny had died from a totally different reason - in fact, the reason was opposite. While the tumor in Robles's body grew and grew, so expanded the gaping emptiness in Jemeny's. A bite of food was all that was needed - but leaving his alcove left him prey for Robles, so there he stayed 'till the day he died.

Now seems the time to bring a third party into the story - a little girl whose friends called her Duck. Duck was as old as Jemeny - she was seven. She had turned seven just recently, unlike Jemeny, who had been seven for seven years.
Duck's favourite game to play was, by far, tiggy. Her best friend Ell had been playing it with her all morning. Ell was quite tired, and suggested they play a different game.
Hide and seek?
Lovely.
So hide and seek they played, and played it well. First Ell hid, then Duck, then Ell once more.
Jemeny could hear their bumps and cries of "I found you!" He thought the sounds were of Robles coming to get him, and was scared that his perfect little home would be discovered. But Robles was not coming to get him, because Robles was lying peacefully in Nod Eastern Cemetary, where the worms ate his cancerous body.
Meanwhile, back with Ell and Duck, things were getting interesting. Their hiding places were getting more and more exotic - "behind the couch" suddenly became "in the cabinet next to the heater." But still they played, and still they searched for more, better hiding places.
It was Duck's turn to hide. She had used up all the good places she had found - but still she craved more! There must be another good place here, she thought, the house is full of them.
She heard Ell's cry - "Coming!" - and her anxiousness became sheer desperation.
But there! What is that? She thought, and heaved upwards with her little hands. The hinged floorboards raised as easily as if they were greased just yesterday.

He has found me, thought Jemeny. But it was not Robles standing in the light of his perfect hiding place - it was a girl.

Duck climbed into the alcove, ignoring the gritty feel of the curvy sticks beside her, and closed the floorboards. She smiled to herself.
Ell will never find me.