Bang Bang

one to the other

"Bang, bang!""So?""You're dead; get out.""Well, I don't die.""Pretend you're dead then.""How so?""Get down, stay still, stick your tongue out.""I don't have a tongue, either.""Then pretend it's there.""I pretend... Like I have a tongue?""Yes, pretend you have a tongue.""Then, I pretend dead?""Yeah, like the dead.""Why would I do all this?""If you don't, the game is over.""Game?""We said, let's play a game ...""We don't play.""But mankind is playing.""Play with mankind then.""If we show them ourselves, we will perish.""So, you shall vanish then."

They fell silent. The forest was quiet. There was little to hear their voices. It was the same whether or not they sounded.

"Let's play a game," the farther one said years later."Why?""Mankind are always playing games.""We don't play," the other said; the season was winter. The pines were black, and the falling snow was white. "We don't play games, nor do we die. Mankind play because they die. They play because they forget to die. They play to remember the forgotten. Don't forget, nor do we die.""What about all those who disappeared?" the farther said."Those who interfere with mankind, they disappear." The other said."Are people evil to them?""Mankind doesn't know evil. They just play little games. They may think they're evil sometimes, but they don't know evil. They're always playing games. What players.""Why do those of us disappear when they are with mankind, then?"They learn to die, but they can't. They disappear instead, they blow in the wind to being nothing.""Is it good to die?""Don't be curious about it.""Let's play a game then."

The other did not answer. A quarter-century has passed.

"Let's play a game," the farther one said."We don't know the game.""Well, what are we then?"The other one did not answer.

"Well, what are we?" The farther one said, half a century later.

"You are nothing anymore, and I am ... Whatever I am."

The farther one got involved in the wind and parished. The other one stood under lonely black pines. The snow was always white and white and white..."Come on, let's play the game ..." said the other, something slipped from his non-existent eye.

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