Gameplay

The chocolate ice cream liquifies quickly in the heat, squidging between my toes and staining one of my new camel-coloured sandals. I figure I have ten seconds, tops, before the pig-tailed girl switches from staring at the empty cone to sniffling, crying and ragged screaming, as only children can do, taking a deep breath before each wail.

“Alice!”

I turn to see who’s calling my name. It’s the pigtailed girl’s mother. “It’s okay, honey, we’ll get you another one,” she says as she takes my namesake’s hand, leading her from the side yard into the house.

“Ali, darling, you made it,” Lewis says. Somehow he manages to look dapper even in this stifling heat. His white linen three-piece suit is crisp, his panama hat partially shading his tanned face.

“Hi Lewis. Where’s the bar?”

“Bit thirsty are we?”

“I was promised many gin and tonics, in large balloon glasses, sweating from copious globes of ice.”

“Oh, you’re not here to celebrate Poppy’s seventh birthday? To revel with the sweaty, sticky-fingered children. Or, as you call them, the pint-sized chaos machines?”

“Gin. And. Tonic.”

“Very well, darling. The bar is in the sunken garden. Go through that door,” he waves at the door Alice and her mother used, “then out the back door, make a left and look for the rose-covered arch. The sunken garden is on the other side.”

“You need anything?” I ask as I turn toward the house.

“If they have any good hallucinogens, bring a few back,” he laughs.

I shake my head and step into the slightly cooler home, removing my sunglasses and putting them in my purse. Apparently I’ve walked into one end of a long dining room, but the table’s been removed. Eleven chairs form an oval, the seats facing outward as a troupe of children march past them. The godawful children’s music that assaulted my ears as soon as I stepped inside thankfully stops, and the kids dash to sit on the chairs. I stride past the mayhem to the other side, where sliding glass doors open to the back yard.

A large, slate-covered patio extends the width of the house and twenty feet into the back yard. On the right side, five children sit cross-legged on the ground facing each other in a rough circle. They’re wearing pointed party hats strapped to their heads with thin strips of elastic. A girl in a red jumpsuit and pink hat walks around the circle tapping the tops of the hats. “Duck,” she says tapping the blue-hatted girl followed by the yellow-hatted boy. Then “Goose” for the green-hatted boy who jumps up and chases her round the circle.

On the left side of the patio, six children watch as an adult spins a blindfolded seventh child, who holds a strip of paper in his hand. The adult releases the kid, who stumbles toward the patio wall which is pasted with a picture of a grey donkey.

A boy in a yellow shirt blocks my path. Beneath his curly black hair, two puppy-dog brown eyes look up at me. “You wanna play?” he asks.

“No.”

“Why not? It’s fun.”

“Maybe I don’t want to have fun.”

“Oh,” he says, his eyebrows scrunching closer together. “You can have mine.” And before I can respond he pushes a piece of crumpled paper into my hand and skips away. I unfold it to reveal a paper donkey’s tail. I tuck it in my purse until I can find a way to dispose of it.

At the far end of the patio, on the left side, I spot an archway covered in red and yellow roses. The sound of children's’ laughter fade the further I walk under the canopy. When I reach the other side, three stone steps lead to a circular sunken garden. The walls are five-feet high, made from grey and brown stones, stacked on top of each other and crawling with ivy. The ground is tiled in the same blue-grey slate as the patio. Behind a table covered in a cloth decorated with red hearts, stands a woman in a white dress. Her milky skin contrasts with her raven hair which is pulled into a severe double bun on top of her head. She smiles and beckons me over.

“Welcome to the sunken garden,” she says. “What would you like?”

“Gin and tonic.”

“We don’t have that.”

“Are you kidding me?” I ask, glancing at her name tag. “Look Carrol, I need a large glass of gin, forget the tonic.”

“We don't have gin.”

“Fine. Vodka then.”

“We don’t have that either.”

“What kind of bar doesn’t have gin or vodka?”

“I mean, this is a CHILDREN’S party, so the hosts have spent most of the budget on magicians, and clowns, party favours, and cake.”

“Well, the HOSTS promised me that I could have some quality G&Ts and then we could discuss some business, and I would not have to interact with the children.”

We stare at each for several moments.

“We have punch,” she says, motioning toward two large crystal bowls on the table, one filled with red punch and the other with blue.

“Do they contain booze?”

“They’ll work like magic.”

“Fine, give me the red one.”

She ladles the punch into a small crystal glass and hands it to me. I down it in one gulp.

“You’re welcome,” she says.

I’m about to ask for refill when the world goes dark and I'm falling towards the table.

I wake up on the ground. I’m alone, Carrol is gone, as is the table with the punch bowls. Spots of coloured light, like sunlight filtered through the prisms of a thousand chandeliers, dance around me. Standing up slowly, I brush dirt off my sky-blue capri pants, and make my way back through the tunnel of roses.

When I emerge on the other side, a flock of ducks wearing pointy party hats quack as they waddle past me, chased by a large white goose in a green hat. I don’t remember seeing a petting zoo on my way in, but maybe I was passed out for longer than I thought. What’s even stranger though, is that there are no children. Or parents, for that matter. They must be inside the house, blowing out candles on Poppy’s birthday cake.

As I walk towards the back door, a flash of grey flickers in the periphery, to my right. I turn my head to see a large donkey. He stamps the patio with his hooves, pulls back his lips to reveal large yellow teeth, and then charges at me. I run toward the house, my sandals slapping hard against the slate. Only a few more steps until I reach the door.

I leap inside and slam the sliding doors shut as quickly as I can. The donkey skids to a stop, glaring at me through the transparent door. His breath fogs the glass and he brays so loud it vibrates, then he turns and walks away. He’s missing a tail.

After a few seconds, the thumping of blood rushing through my ears is replaced with utter cacophony, as if hundreds of musical instruments are tumbling down an unending staircase. I pivot from the door to face the dining room. The chairs are standing on their back legs, playing instruments with their front legs. The one closest to me beats on a bass drum. Other chairs are ringing triangles, and banging on pianos and xylophones. One chair in the corner is murdering a harp.

I mutter, “What the actual fu—”

“Hey lady,” says the yellow-shirted boy from earlier.

“Hey…kid.”

“I’m Samuel.”

“I’m Alice. Samuel, what’s going on here?”

“I don’t know. I had to pee. I came back. And…” he waves at the chairs.

“What do musical chairs and donkeys have in common?” asks a voice.

I jump at the sound and turn to see Lewis. He’s traded his white linen suit for a bright green one, and his panama hat for black-and-green checkered top hat. He’s standing at the kitchen counter drinking tea from a fancy cup.

“Lewis! Thank god,” I say walking towards him.

“Silence!” he yells.

I stop on the spot. The chairs stop playing.

“Well?” he asks.

“Well what?”

“What’s your answer to the riddle?”

“Ah, they both have four legs?”

“Nonsense!” he trills. “You’ll never leave the way you came. You must learn to play the game.”

“What game?”

“The puzzle has a missing piece, you must complete the beast, or spend endless time with ducks and geese.”

“Lewis, that doesn’t make any—”

He disappears in a cloud of blue smoke.

Samuel waves the smoke away from his face, then sneezes three times.

I reach into my purse for a Kleenex and something wriggles against my fingers.

“Gah!”

“What’s wrong, Alice?”

“There’s something moving in my purse,” I say as I set it on kitchen counter and open it as wide as I can.

A large grey worm, fatter at the top and sprouting thick black hair at bottom, twists and turns.

Samuel pulls up a chair and stands on it so he can see into the purse. “That’s the tail for the donkey!” he exclaims.

“How’d it get in MY purse? Oh…wait, you gave me that piece of paper with a donkey tail drawn on it…Maybe that’s the missing puzzle piece?” I wonder, looking through glass windows to the donkey who’s glaring back. 

“I have to complete the beast,” I continue, picking up the tail gingerly.

“You gonna put it back on?” Samuel asks.

“Yeah, yeah. But he doesn’t like me. We’ll need to find a way to distract him, so that I can get close enough to attach it.”

“Donkeys like carrots,” Samuel offers.

“What? Oh, yes. We tempt him with carrots, and while he’s eating, I stick his tail back on. Great idea Samuel. Why don’t you look in the fridge for veggies. Carrots, lettuce, that kind of thing.”

He nods enthusiastically and opens the fridge while I rummage through the kitchen cabinets trying to find a receptacle for the vegetables. That’s when I find one of the crystal punch bowls, gathering dust, on a bottom shelf.

“This ought to work," I say, as I place it on the kitchen floor so Samuel can load the carrots and lettuce and celery into it.

I pick up the bowl and walk toward the sliding glass doors. The donkey is about ten feet away, ears flattened to his head, teeth bared.

“You stay here, Samuel,” I say as slide the doors open and step onto the back patio. “And close the doors behind me.”

I walk a few paces and bend down to put the bowl on the slate tiles. That’s when the donkey charges. I leap onto a nearby picnic table and he butts his head against it, throwing me off balance. I widen my stance and shuffle in a tight circle on top to the table, moving with the donkey, keeping him in sight. As I shuffle back to face the house, I see Samuel. He’s on the patio, laying down a trail of chopped carrots, leading back to the bowl filled with veggies.

He slips back into the house and yells, “Hey donkey, hey donkey!”

The beast turns toward the noise, ears perking up. He walks toward the back door, then stops, places his muzzle against the ground, and crunches on a carrot. Gradually he gets closer and closer to the glass bowl until he starts eating from it.

I tiptoe off the picnic table and creep toward him, keeping his backside facing me.

The tail wiggles in my hand and I nearly yelp. Slowing my breath, I take a few small steps until I’m within touching distance.

Samuel is dancing and singing, “Hey donkey, donkey.” As the beast’s ears turn toward him, I smack the tail on his backside. He brays and kicks me. Blackness descends.

When I open my eyes, I’m surrounded in a whirlwind of colour that fades after a few moments. I’m on the patio. Behind me, a group of children plays Duck Duck Goose. In front of me is the donkey, pasted as a picture on the patio wall.

“Your turn, Alice,” Samuel says, grinning, handing me a blindfold.

I smile and put it on. The children gather round and turn me in a circle, faster and faster, until I’m stumbling and laughing.