Random Story Post

I want to level with all of you.  I want to sit here and talk real talk.  Right now though, I’m hurting, and I need to hit the literary equivalent of the gym and then hit the shower.  Next time though, I promise.

Prompts: Neolithic Ireland and Double Dribble.

The Game

They called us savages.  They insisted on creating fields and taming the wild spirit of Gaia.  They called us woad because we refused to give up our forests and The Game, our hazelnuts and berries, and move into their towns.  We didn’t wish to work iron, or sow our clothes from the harvested flax.  No, we were forest folk, the men and women of The Game.

It was our most sacred past time.  A ritual handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, from time out of mind and speech.  We had always played it, protecting it from outside prying eyes with bow and knife and cunning.  None were allowed to walk our hallowed ground, unless they had been sanctified by the wisest of our elders.

When we weren’t hunting, gathering, or tending to our meager needs, we practiced.  All children and adults played the approved variations of the game in their free time.  Our leaders were drawn from only the most skilled workers of hide, and their power was inextricably linked to their craftsmanship.  When their hands trembled, when their eyes dimmed, all of them had enough honor and respect for The Game to step down.

Our cities encircled the fields, protecting and secluding them all at once.  They were tended by the majeesh, the sacred foresters, who had no other duties in any village.  To become a caretaker of such high esteem, each forester had to devote half their life to an apprenticeship.  Parents lined up to have their children deemed worthy to begin by the elders.  To be a majeesh was to be judicious, without hesitation or doubt, and to have the sacred history of The Game woven into their soul.

When it was time for the weekly ritual, the Elders would call out those who had earned participation.  It mattered not their gender, nor their ability.  Only the spirit of competition mattered to Gaia, and none would dare blaspheme the ritual by suggesting another would be more capable.

At the start of each ritual, the chosen would paint themselves with the blood red dye made from berries and bark, each wearing the same markings as the others in their group.   Each group was always the same; one man or woman for each finger of the hand.   The hands separation and the independent motion of the fingers were present in the ritual, and the skilled weaving of fingers had wrought all that was and is before Gaia and The Game.  It was fitting tribute.

When they took the field, they were surrounded by the whole of the village save those called to defend the village borders.  Being called to defend The Game from outsiders was an honor, but one rotated throughout the village to bring honor before Gaia.  The two teams were naked, man and woman both, only the paint upon their bodies marking them apart from one another.  On either end of the field stood a sacred tree, carefully tended and shaped to be flat on the sides which faced each other.  Attached to them was a woven halo, a model of the crown Gaia herself wore.

The majeesh entered the center of the field, wearing the sacred robes of their office.  On one hip was the boodaan, a wooden blade he would use to cut his own throat should he ever rule incorrectly in the ritual.  As the guardian of both Game and field, there was no room for error in the life of a majeesh. On either end of the field stood a sacred tree, carefully tended and shaped to be flat on the sides which faced each other.  Attached to them was a woven halo, a model of the crown Gaia herself wor

On their other hip was the ball.  A woven ball crafted by our chief, stuffed with only the finest down and lined with the sap from the sacred trees which the majeesh cared for.  No sacred tree was allowed to grow outside of the village, lest outsiders discover The Game.  When a village soured and we were forced to move inland, we would take a sapling of the tree and burn the remainder as well as the field. Although we did not know how we had come to possess the sacred trees, none could be allowed to know of them.  The game and its ritual were ours and none others.

The majeesh reaching the middle of the field, eyed each captain voted on by the two sides.  All three stood, a sacred triangle of life, hands, and cunning.  Then, without warning, the majeesh let out a high, ululating cry, and threw the ball into the air.  The ritual, The Game, had begun.

Gamefully,
Justin