Just Jump

3

“Alright, you’re up. What do you want me to do about it?” I ask her.

“I was kinda hoping you’d play a game with me,” she says.

“’Kinda’ isn’t a word, Darcie,” I answer.

“Could you play a game with me?”

"It’s four ‘o’ clock in the morning.”

"Risk or Settlers of Catan?”

“What happened to Monopoly?” I get up at this point, with Darcie up I won’t be able to go back to sleep.

"I think someone took it.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I saw them in my head, walking away and saying something about how they don’t want us to play games with domination in them.”

There are a number of things wrong with that sentence. One, Darcie saw someone in her head, and not actually in real life. Two, I don’t really think Monopoly is that much of a domination game. Three, both Risk and Settlers of Catan are games based solely on domination.

The people here are really strict about what we can and can’t have in our ward. No weapons of any sort, this includes firearms, knives, and even scissors; no spoons, although we have three spoons hidden in our ward for some reason (don’t tell anyone); no food, although we have an abundant amount of that also; no alcohol, but that doesn’t affect anything; no cigarettes, also doesn’t affect anything; no drugs, also doesn’t do anything; and no frogs. I kid you not, we’re not allowed to have frogs for some reason.

We’re one of the lucky wards. We have some sources of entertainment, including board games, books, and an old radio, but that’s about it.

And honestly, we have a three-year-old in our ward, we don’t need half of it.

Speaking of the three-year-old, Darcie’s still staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“Darce, what do you mean you saw them inside your head?” I ask.

She shrugs her tiny shoulders. “It was in my dream, I guess.”

“What was your dream about?” I’m hoping she’ll have some useful information, but instead she tells me her entire dream.

“Well, you and I were fishing. But we weren’t fishing for fish, we were fishing for snakes. So anyway, I caught one but when I pulled it out of the water it turned into a pen, and the pen had toxic ink that destroyed anything it touched. So then we had to ga-”

“Darcie?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t really care. Just tell me about the part with the game, ‘kay?”

"Okay. So we took all the bad pens back to our ward and gave them to this person, but she started writing with them and destroyed Monopoly. Then she picked up every single little piece and glued it back together! And then she took it out of the room.”

What goes on in that head of hers? “That’s a pretty weird dream,” I comment. 

“I know,” she glances down at her small hands. “I know everything.”