MEGAN PRICE: It was only a game
Megan Price is a self-published writer who lives in Trafalgar on the KZN South Coast.
We slid the stones across the paper thin ice, hearing it crack but never break.
It sent a shiver down my spine. The one who went the furthest won, the one who broke the ice had to swim.
I didn’t want to play but they laughed. My shoes were wet and my toes were cold. The trees looked like ghosts. I wanted to go home. I played with the smooth river stones in my pockets, hoping I had chosen the right ones. The girls sat on logs and watched, cheering and sipping warm tea, wrapped up in fur blankets.
“Your turn,” someone yelled and I knew it was to me. I felt around and chose my stone. Cracks covered the paper thin ice over the pond, leaves settled on its surface, eerie darkness beneath.
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“Throw too high and down you go!”
My hands shook, I didn’t know if I was cold or scared. The stone was warm from my hands. What if it melted the ice? I fell to my knees and rolled them around in the ice, cooling them down again. Everyone laughed as my trousers soaked up the snow. I walked to the edge of the pond, aiming my stone toward the others.
“Boo!” yelled the girls, trying to make me drop it, but I held on tight.
The wind blew against the wet patches over my knees, making me shiver.
“Get on with it.”
I looked far out into the ice where the other stones sat waiting for mine.
“If I win I can go home?”
“You won’t win.”
If I win I can go home, I told myself.
I held my breath and looked down at the ice. The girls whispered and the boys watched. I pulled my arm back behind me and sent the stone sliding across the ice, cracks following it all the way. I shouldn’t have held it so long. I should have gone home. Don’t break. Don’t break. Don’t break. The stone skidded past the others to rest in the centre of the pond, a spiderweb of cracks all around it. I let out a breath that plumed in front of my eyes.
“No fun,” they yelled as the ice held.
The echo made me screech as a stone hit the ice from high in the sky. They laughed. The dark water seeped through the breaks, swallowing the stones.
“Time for a swim!” they shouted, pushing me toward the water.
“No, please. I didn’t break the ice.”
“Then why is it broken?”
“You broke it! You broke it!”
The water stung, it felt as though my bones would break. I wanted to cry out but my lungs had no air. The stones in my pockets would weigh me down if I went deeper. I crawled for the shore but they kicked me back.
“Stop laughing,” I shouted.
I felt myself sink into the mud and all I could hear was their laughter. With all the strength I could find, I grabbed onto the other two boys ankles and pulled them in. They screamed like little girls. They stopped laughing. The girls dropped their warm tea and left their logs. I wasn’t cold any more. We swam to the shore and the air was warm against my skin. The girls pulled the others up and we all flopped down onto the snowy ground.
I began to laugh. We lay there and watched the snow fall down, laughing wrapped in the fur blanket and mugs of hot tea in our hands. We would all get in trouble the moment we got home, but for now, we let the morning sun warm us, the cold melting away with our laughs. It was only a game.
* Megan Price is a self-published writer who lives in Trafalgar on the KZN South Coast. She has written numerous flash fiction stories, one of which won The Creative Writing Ink Short Story Competition in 2022. She has also written and self-published a number of longer short stories and has sold copies all over the world.
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