With grim determination, the boy neared the girl once again. It had taken two minutes but he was closer than ever; she was quicker than he last remembered but as he anticipated, she was quickly tiring. Within inches of her, he reached once more. His arms strained from their joints, almost within reach of winning this little bout. The ribbon tingled in the sunlight, swaying in the air enticingly, pleading to be taken. It’s calling my name, he thought with a smile.
His right leg buckled as his foot hit a precarious yet well hidden pothole and his left foot came down onto the ground rather weakly failing to compensate. But he surged on, urged on by victory, but he could no longer maintain his balance as his body followed pursuit of his arms. Velocity tried to pull him in to the ground but at the last moment in vain, he arched his back and with all his might, jumped forward in the air. He momentarily felt the smooth, silky fabric of the ribbon seductively dance against his fingertips and he instantly reacted, clutching his hands together but it snaked playfully out of his grasp and it was gone.
Then suddenly, the ribbon stopped moving, as did the girl, and he found himself in a heap of sweat, grass, mud, foreign limbs rasping for a breath. Dry mud was caked on his face, mingling with his complexion, he thought it caused him resemble the dark-coloured children in his class. Above, tufts of arid grass were stuck in his hair; a string of it, clumped together by impact of his fall, was perched comically on the black locks of his hair. It irritability strayed across his eyes making him blink uncontrollably. His hands were dirty but after half a second of deliberating he decided better of it and roughly chafed his hair, shaking any debris out of the unmanageable mess that rested on his scalp. He continued with his face but it only attributed to making him dirtier so left it for the time being. He examined his clothes with a once over and his smile immediately faded: grass strains penetrated his white shorts and dark stains that he could only hope to be mud decorated the front of his pale yellow shirt. Out of desperation he scratched at a brown smear at the base of his shorts but still it remained. The boy scorned at his attempts - He was a mess and nothing he could do now could fix that. If only I had been more careful, he wondered, hitting the earth in frustration with the heel of his fists. His mother would be angry. She warned him not to ruin his clothes – there was a shortage of water as more restrictions were imposed on the area – and she could not possibly afford to waste more water to tend to the misdemeanours of her child. She would surely beat him for his disobedience. And the fact that his uncle would hear of this, made his blood run cold.
He lay there for a moment, attempting to comprehend what just happened. He lost the game. He wondered how but answers failed to come to him. He lay on his back for a moment slightly dazed and thoroughly confused, when he heard a muffled shout below him.
‘Get off me, Amir.’ It said in Arabic. There was a shift of movement underneath him, and his body was pushed aside and a body emerged where he lay. Amir was amused when he seen Lydia’s ruffled hair, dirty and caked with dry mud, rise from the earth. She too would be in trouble by her parents. Her face flushed and indignantly, she pulled herself upright rather groggily, and looked around her surrounding as if she did not know where she was. She remained standing there for a while, giddy on her legs like a drunken sailor, until her eyes refocused zooming in on Amir. The look of vacant transformed into menace causing Amir to shrink back like a boy chastised.
‘Watch where you are going, next time. You almost knocked me unconscious, idiot.’ She shouted in Arabic.
Amir’s grin faded, and he scoffed at the remark, jumping on the soles of his feet, he replied in his native tongue. ‘Watch where I am going? We’re playing a game of Flag and you bloody stop. Who on earth stops!’
“Liar, you were falling even before I stopped you dumb -” She suddenly paused, her eyes widened, glistening a new emotion. She staggered a step back as if she was hit by an invisible force and her head reeled side to side in unbelief. ‘No’ she mouthed over and over again. Amir watched her in confusion wondering if she was possessed by the demon that comes for his mother every so often. He knew it did not attack the young but perhaps it favoured Lydia today. No, it is forbidden, God does not permit such evil, He told himself and banished the thoughts of evil at once. He began to walk to Lydia when she raised her arm to the sky and pointed behind him.
‘Look.’ She whispered.
Amir followed the path her hand set out in the sky with sense of dread. He regretted ever looking: he could see several grey specks in the distance heading in their direction, readily approaching fast. He knew what they were. Life as they knew it was to change.
