The Game

The game begins with someone who has a particular trait. Someone who isn’tlike the others. Someone everyone admires -or even if they don’t admit it, they know this person is better at something. Or they think he is. It makes no difference.

This person sets a rule. The Rule. The rest, maybe because they don’t want to oppose, or because they find it hard to make their own rules, or because they simply want to play, or because of reasons we cannot know -and they themselves barely know- will follow. That’s how the story begins, even if it’s a children’s game made up by six-year-olds or the birth of a society.

I took this lesson early in my life. Not in the classroom from my teacher, but out in the schoolyard from my classmate, X.

My classmate was taller, slimmer, she seemed so much more beautiful than me. We all wanted her attention. Even the grumpiest teachers seemed to treat her with a particular gentleness. Or at least that’s how I felt. It makes no difference.

So, my classmate -who was an enemy but also a friend- invented the game. She set the Rule, and the rest of us triumphantly followed.

The game went like this: we all started running from the same imaginary line toward the finish point. At the end, we all cheered for our own speed -except for one. The one who unanimously was given the title of the Slow, which made our finishing feel like a grand achievement.

The Slowest had to chase us. And, of course, it was hard. When someone was finally caught, he would take the place of the Slow. But not for long.

The second time we played, the Slow caught X. Then she remembered there was another rule she had made but forgotten to mention. From that moment on, it would apply: Everyone gets three chances.

So now the Slow had to try three times as hard.

When eventually the Slow caught X a third time, she told him it didn’t count— because there was another rule, one the Slow had forgotten. Where she was standing, he couldn’t tag her.

That place became known as the Place. It was a patch of dry dirt in the schoolyard under a huge poplar tree. When we sat on its roots, no one could touch us.

In my adult life, the Place shifted from the soil beneath the poplar to other spots, until I realized the Place can’t truly be anywhere else except where there is soil. Ideally, under a poplar tree.

I’ve been playing the same game for years now, from different roles. Like this moment, spilling out these thoughts, I feel like the Slow. Time passes me, people pass me, my obligations pass me.

But I slow down. I don’t want to chase anyone or anything. I feel a kind of eudaimonia flowing through my fingers passing onto the page. Maybe I could invent a different game and set the First Rule myself. I would call it The Slow’s Rebellion. What would the others do, I wonder, when the Slow stopped chasing them? How useful is a Slow if not to make someone else feel fast? And finally, who is considered the fast? The one who runs faster, or the one who lets time pass through and transform him along the way? Is time measured in steps or in transformations?

And maybe, now, am I playing the same game I used to play? And am I the fastest?

 

About the Author

Georgia Xanthopoulou lives in Athens. She writes poetry, prose, and plays. Her works have been published in English-language literary magazines. She studied English Literature and holds a PhD in Philosophy.