Work Text:
The room is big and yellow. Looming. Disjointed. The child has entered but lingers mindlessly in the doorway, its fingers curled over the hems of its huge sleeves, avoiding eye contact with the figure in the room. The child does not remember how it got here. The child does not know what it is doing here. The child looks at the yellow walls.
Hi there. Sorry for pulling you out of class. I know you’ve been busy catching up. The figure, invisible and invasive, draws nearer and the child pulls away. It is sick and scared.
Don’t worry. I just want to talk with you. The figure retreats, sits at the enormous desk. The child cannot make out the figure, but senses its movements and its words. The figure waits, hands likely folded in patient idleness. Kind eyes. Some kind of eyes.
The child does not want to talk, and remains silent. But it takes a few steps forward, into the room, away from the door, curious about the yellow walls and huge, looming desk.
Hey, do you want to play a game? The child makes eye contact, and, frightened, immediately looks away, but keeps listening. You can pick any game you want, and we can play it together.
The child takes a moment to focus on its heart beating frantically in its chest while the bitter fear quells into intrigue. This is a puzzle. The child turns to the bookshelf and slowly trails its small fingers down the assortment of boxed games.
The figure watches, studying the clumped, choppy cut of the brown hair, the huge sweater, the knobby knees. The eyes are the scariest, thin and dark and sightless and omnipotent. The figure wonders how she — it corrects itself — how the child can see anything at all.
The child does not immediately make a decision. It reaches for Graverobber, then hesitates. It places its hands on checkers before changing its mind. It considers Rotation briefly before almost taking Accident off the shelf. At the last minute, the child straightens back up and returns to Graverobber, promptly walking to the enormous desk, sliding the box onto it, and pulling itself into the humongous chair.
The figure opens the box, pulls out the two foldable tablets, and begins arranging its pieces. Graverobber is kind of like Battleship. Before the figure has finished speaking, the child has snatched its own playing pieces out of the box and begun to set them up. Oh, you already know Graverobber? That’s good. I don’t like explaining things.
The child places its red triangle piece in a bottom corner, and the figure’s white ghost piece in the opposite top corner. The child takes its windmill and places it directly horizontal to the white piece, then turns each of its three graves in different orientations before arranging them across the board relatively equidistant from each other. On the recording side of its tablet, the child marks the two corners where the playing pieces sit as “walkable”, then sits with its hands folded limply in its lap as it awaits the figure’s next instruction.
Player 2 is waiting, the figure says with a smile. The child studies the board, then makes its move, pulling the red triangle across the board. The child holds up six fingers for the figure to see, and trails its finger in the air in the direction the piece was placed. Player 1 has moved six spaces to the right? The child nods.
The figure then makes its own move. Player 2 has moved six spaces to the left, it says. The child hesitates before the figure indicates with a hand which direction it meant. The child then moves the white piece accordingly on its own board, holding in a twitch of a smile noticing the piece’s blockage against the windmill. The child reaches for its record side before the figure interrupts.
I called you several times and you didn’t come. The figure leans forward kindly, but the child pulls back, removing its hands from the board and hovering them limply before its chest. The choppy brown hair obscures its face. Do I have the wrong name here?
When the child doesn’t answer, the figure pulls up its clipboard and checks the paper. The official identification reads “Carrie Mark”, but it has been crossed out with a shaky hand, with two new words written beneath it in wobbly orange crayon. Hmm. I notice you named your file “Strange situation.” Is that your name?
The child slowly shakes its head, a silent “no”.
Please confirm.
The figure hands the file to the child, along with a red pen. The child takes the clipboard without looking up, stares at the names at the top for a moment, then scribbles over “Strange situation” and writes in a single word. It passes back the file, and the figure studies it with intrigue. This is a puzzle.
Paul. Okay. The figure sets the file away, and smiles. Your turn, Paul.
The child — Paul — focuses on the board, trying to remember what just happened. Paul reaches its — his — hand and marks six green rectangles across the top row. Then he looks to his own board, and places the shovel piece on the space directly above his red triangle.
Player 1 dug up, the figure graciously narrates. G-7 , it says. Paul looks back at his record side and notes that his pieces are still perfectly synched, marking his past six moves as walkable. He drops his hand and waits. The game continues.
Player 2 has moved 2 spaces down. What just happened? Player 1 has moved 3 spaces up. I’m thinking. Player 2 has moved 6 spaces to the right. Are you right handed, or left handed?
The sudden direct question takes Paul by surprise as he reaches for the record side of his board again. He retracts his hand, and gazes at it, and his head hurts, and his eyes ache. He looks at the other hand. He studies the thumbs, trying to remember some trick he once knew. Maybe he never knew. He shrugs his shoulders helplessly.
You don’t know? Really? Paul studies his thumbs. Well, which hand do you write with?
Write with. Right? Right, with the writing... The right hand…? Paul lifts his writing hand.
That one? That’s your left hand. That means you’re left handed.
Paul drops his hand. His head hurts. He doesn’t even remember if he knows how to write.
I’m right handed. I use this hand.
The figure lifts its own writing hand and it looks like the same hand. Paul sees himself in a mirror, raising a hand to the glass. Paul feels dizzy.
My right is actually your left. Isn’t that confusing?
The room is spinning, and it doesn’t right itself.
Anyway, your turn.
Paul focuses, un-focuses, re-focuses, staring at the record side. What just happened. Six spaces. To the right. If this hand is left, then… he knows now, at least for the moment, and marks the green spaces accordingly. He then thinks about digging before changing his mind — he knows where he is. He can wander a little longer.
Player 1 has moved 4 spaces to the left.
In this game, Player 2’s right is not Player 1’s left. Paul is confused again.
Player 2 has moved 3 spaces down.
Paul records the movement, and digs upward.
Nothing was found there. D-6.
Paul holds back a smirk. On his board, he dug at D-3. Finally, some progress. He records what he now knows to be real. He is good at this game.
Player 2 dug down. Paul shakes his head — nothing was found there. He traces in the air a G, followed by raising 8 fingers.
Moving five times in a row was a mistake. Now I can’t retrace all my steps. Paul holds back another smirk, noting how he has already discovered the location of an obstacle, while the figure has no idea it hit the windmill. You should dig often. It helps you win.
No shit. Paul records the movements, now updated to his desynchronization, and then places his shovel on the rectangle to the left — no, right — of his red triangle.
Player 1 digs right. E-7. Something was there! But what?
The figure moves 3 spaces up. Paul moves 5 spaces to the right — re-synched. The figure moves 7 spaces to the right — no, to the left. Paul reaches for the record side.
Kids shouldn’t say swear words. Do you know why?
Paul freezes.
It just doesn’t sound right. It’s disturbing.
Paul is frozen.
You should choose cleaner words, even when you’re really angry.
Paul clenches his frozen jaw and wills the walls to stop wobbling.
Your turn.
Paul records what just happened, then moves 2 spaces up, seeing red and growing increasingly uneasy. Player 2 digs upward, directly into Paul’s windmill, and the anxiety buzzes in his gut like a swarm of bloodthirsty gnats. Paul records and moves.
Player 1 has moved 1 spaces to the left. The figure pauses and thinks. Player 2 has moved 1 spaces to the right. “My right is your left," but they are going in opposite directions. Paul, eyes aching and head throbbing, reaches to record what just happened.
That’s a very big boo-boo on your face.
The child — no, Paul — has been doing a decent job of hiding it under the stringy brown hair, but even if the figure hadn’t known about it beforehand, it would have been impossible to miss. The split lip and bruised cheekbone like cruel adornments. Small scratches and rashes lacing the skin of the jaw. But it is the brow — raw, red, naked, and wounded — and the hollow, vacant, narrow eyes nestled beneath it that are the true horror. The whole face like a car accident, a glitching mirage centered at the crimson, swollen, plucked brow.
Paul’s vision blurs. He can’t remember if he is blind or stupid and tries to focus on the playing pieces but the images won’t sharpen, floating slightly and blending together.
We’re going to help you, together. Everyone is.
Everyone. The word sparks a sensation in Paul’s chest, a sharp wave of panic and disgust and despair. A memory: eyes, hands, a heavy and unshakable ugliness. He would not like any of them helping him.
Whenever you reach for your shoes, your shoes will be there. A memory: grasping for something to pull away, a tool for defense, a bedsheet, a chair, a crayon, anything.
When you walk through a doorway, the door will be open. A memory: walls and walls with no escape, the face being slammed into the door, seeing a light that never grows closer.
Wherever you walk, the floor will continue under your feet. A memory: blindness and labored breathing, being thrown down the stairs by an invisible force, falling and spinning and screaming.
Every move you make, will be made valid. A memory: cold, thin needles, fingers hovering above them, every wrong note accentuated with a quick stab.
Everything you see will become real. A memory: the door kicked open, light pouring inside, a hand gripping the throat, and the face — that familiar, disgusting face — breathing down.
Everything you say will become the truth. A memory: nobody loves you.
Your turn.
The room is small and Paul isn’t sure why he’s sitting in such a tiny chair, his knees knocking against the table. The game controller is still in his hand. He looks around the room, confused, but the walls clip in and out of each other and nothing makes sense. He’s 27 and this is not a school and this is not his house and this is all wrong.
All wrong. All right. Left. Write.
Little Paul starts to reach for the record side, his dainty fingertips red and wrapped and swollen, before the yellow of the enormous, looming walls frightens him backwards. This chair is very big, his sweater swallowing his tiny frame whole, and he self-consciously ducks his head so the choppy brown hair falls in front of his eyes. Blindness.
The child turns away from the board, making to scoot itself off of the chair.
You want to quit? Why?
The figure then sees the tear tracks on the cheeks, and the trembling lip.
Oh. I don’t blame you. Grave robbery is vile. This is an awful game, huh?
The child doesn’t respond, but it almost nods.
We can play something else if you want.
The child scoots off the chair, moves to the shelf, and stares. It stares. It doesn’t pick anything. It gets back into the chair, dizzy.
It’s okay. You can go.
Paul knows he should feel relieved, but instead is flooded with shame. He hopes he is dead.
I hope you can find your real house.
Paul stumbles out of the chair, clutching his blistered fingers to his chest, and weakly walks for the door, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy— he swings to the right, the left, the right, the left… When the child is gone, the figure writes.
Care left the room.