Play

I brushed my hand gently along the wooden panes of the weathered cubby house, drifting back into fond memories of a time filled with the bliss of childhood. The inside was damp with the recent rain, but also showed signs of neglect, the paint had worn away and dust gathered in corners where the rain hadn’t reached.

It wasn’t that many years ago when I would play a game with my brother in this cubby house. As kids, we created a game where we were king and queen of a kingdom called SaraHadi. Widely imaginative, we took to arranging our stuffed toys and giving out orders. Much to our parents’ amusement, we also got them involved and like good sports they would play along, listening to our demands. The game would always end with our parents tickling us as they asked in mock anger how dare we order them around. Then we’d fall in a large, laughing heap, outside of the cubby house of course – our parents never did fit in there properly.

A couple of jars lay on their sides, forgotten. Scrunching my nose, I reached in and grasped the jars caked in grime, resisting the urge to wash my hands immediately. A label was on each jam jar, the old one removed and replaced with a then fresh white sticker. On one, in proud childish cursive writing, ‘Sara’ was scribbled and on another, chicken scratch I could barely make out, ‘Hadi’.

As we got older, our game took on a new variation. We learned about having to ‘take care of our people’ and so we decided to ‘fish’ for our kingdom. Using jam jars from the pantry – after scarfing down numerous amounts of toast with a large helping of jam – we decided to take our jars to the lake near our house to go fishing.

Mum insisted on going with us, which was annoying at the time. “Your majesties!” she would yell, “You’re running much too fast!“. Giggling, my brother and I grasped hands to run to the lake in front of Mum, him with the shorter, scrawny legs which tripped him over every now and then, and me with the somewhat more sure way of running. Laughing breathlessly as we reached the lake, we would collapse into giggles until Mum caught up, reprimanding us.

“As your servant today, I care for the welfare of my king and queen!” she would say. So she sat, as we set to fishing – it wasn’t actually fishing, our lake was full of tadpoles so our game consisted of us catching as many as we could with our hands as Mum kept score.

Smiling fondly as I gazed at the jars, I decided to head out of the cubby house to give them a rinse and pack them among one of the many boxes that lay strewn around the house.

“Sara!” a voice rang out. Forgetting how much taller I was now, I knocked my head on the door.

“I’m here!” I replied, my head feeling sore on the side.

My brother materialised in front of me, shuffling on his feet from side to side. “Err...Dad wants to know whether your room is ready...” he mumbled.

What had happened to us? It was so strained now.

One night, Ben had announced at dinner proudly, “Today, I caught 10 tadpoles!” I was confused, I hadn’t been to the lake in weeks.

“Did you go by yourself?” I queried, furrowing my brow.

“Nah, with Adam. It was really fun!” he replied nonchalantly. An unknown feeling coursed through me, who was this Adam? When I asked, he spat out harshly, “You would know but you’re always busy at the library!” I don’t remember how I replied at the time, but I do remember that dinner got tense – quickly.

The jars were still clasped in my hands. I gripped them harder. “It’s all cleared out, I already took the boxes downstairs,” I replied, nerves trembling through the voice as I began my next sentence, “Do you...uh...remember these?”

Although cased in years in grime, I saw that he recognised them as he began to make a small smile, “Yeah, one of the best games ever...” He seemed bashful admitting this but I was relieved.

“One last time, for memory sake?” I gestured towards the jars.

He seemed to ponder it for a moment, then broke out into a large grin, “Race ya!” and sped off. No longer was he the short, scrawny boy who needed my help to get to the lake, he led the way now confidently. Once there, we indulged in our fond childhood game, catching fish and having our usual competition.

Mum found us later attempting to count the ‘fish’ but with little luck. Her laugh startled us, causing us to knock the jars back into the lake.

Her face sobered, “Your majesties...it’s time to go” she announced softly. It was time to leave the lake, the cubby house, our home – but hopefully never the memories that we made in it.