Play The Game

(work in progress)

Play the game.

By Michelle Natividad Stein

Walls of cold tile, neat and orderly, outlining the circling birds, locked in an eternal battle.  The embodiment of human virtues, bravery, courage, knowledge and righteousness in non-human form.

You kneel to play, before the walls, before the birds in battle, in a posture of subservience.  On your pedestal of mocked comfort, you begin the game.  Taking tiles that break down organized walls, building your own wall before you, possessive. Covinting what still lies hidden in the walls you dismantle, or coveting what others keep from you, you are needy.  Never satisfied with what you have blindly chosen with your own hand.  You watch your opponents, what they discard, what they place up for wager. As the game progresses the birds are obscured by the discarded, the unwanted.  They are clouded.  Their battle is forgotten, their omnipotence is forgotten, lost in obscurity as you pursue your own greed, your desires, your goal.  And yet all players are still in the same position of subservience.  What is sacred now?