The Dangerous Game

The thin, bent grandfather sat quietly watching his beloved mastiff puppy waddle amongst the many grandchildren playing around him. Young Danielle skipped over to sit beside him. They sat in silence watching the games when she looked up at him and asked, “Grandpa, What did you do when you were this age?”

 The grandfather was hard of hearing and often paused to decide whether he heard something or not. Usually he would decide he did not, so he would not have to respond. But this time he stared blankly, slipping back to being fourteen years-old.

 “The war was all around us,” he said in his thick French accent. “We lived in a country occupied by soldiers who were our enemies.  We went to school, played sports and even went to parties, but we knew the soldiers were ready to stop, arrest, or punish any action they chose. We saw streets blocked off as soldiers gathered the young men and trucked them to work camps far away.  Our parents warned us of the danger of the soldiers and pleaded with us to stay clear of them. But we grew tired of being fearful all of the time.  Occasionally we followed the soldiers to see what they were doing.  Maybe we could warn potential targets or distract the soldiers from their duties. We would tease each other to be more daring.

 “Inevitably one day we got too close, and the soldiers started chasing us. We knew the backstreets and were confident we could hide or elude them. It was a game, and we had the advantage.

 “Then we heard two shots, and the game was over.  We all were running for our lives. I hid in a basement as the soldiers with their dogs raced past. When I finally got home safely, it was days before I knew we all had escaped. When we finally gathered again, we knew we would never again be that stupid.             

 Next time we would be smarter, and so the game continued.”