![]() But I was also, fractionally, the older person I was now, cringing at the thought of what he, that boy, would find inside. I was, mostly, the boy I had been that day: thirsty, sweet, self-pleased, ignorant of the future, the right side of my face slightly more sun-warmed than the left. I had done so back then and therefore must do so again. Or so I felt, lying on my childhood lawn beside my sister, Clara. All that had occurred before had been necessary to bring us about, to produce the young and healthy perfection that was us, our generation, so that we could finally, on behalf of all who had come before, render meaningful that brutal thing called life on earth. No, not pointless, not at all: we were the point. At last could begin the culmination of earth’s tiresome history, during which, early on, countless generations of men in crude leather sandals had driven swords into other men in sandals, as the downtrodden women of the stabbed men looked on, dreading their coming ravishment, after which some slightly more sophisticated men, in leggings and cravats, had driven sabres into some other men in leggings and cravats, as their downtrodden women coughed into delicate handkerchiefs, dreading their coming ravishment, and even in good times the poor sickened, the rich feasted, men beat horses, lions ate baby gazelles, and for what? To what end? Had it all been just a pointless, random, meaningless disposition of energy? All of eternity, that is, had been leading up to this moment, when we would finally arrive. Then the light, plus the smell of the air (loam, just-cut grass, a hint of vanilla from the Nabisco plant across the park), began communicating a second subverbal certainty: it was plain to me, lying on my back, that, of all the generations that had trod upon the earth, ours-Clara’s and mine, i.e., this very one-would be the first to discover that the oppressive patterns observable everywhere around us (wars, riots, divorces, famines, strange old people whose bitterness had yellowed their teeth and warped their spines) could be disrupted. A thrilling new world was coming, in which adult privileges would be ours: we would drive, kiss, smoke, laugh confidently in huskier voices soon to be born mysteriously from within us. Not only would delightful new experiences keep materializing but our means of understanding and enjoying those experiences would expand as well. Something in the quality of the light seemed to be making promises regarding our future: life would continue to be what it had always been for us, a perpetual opening, out and out and out. Then came the lovely sounds of the old neighborhood: yapping sales patter from a kitchen-window-perched radio the cars over on Blair, more blatantly mechanical and clank-clank-clank than their contemporary counterparts distant lawnmowers cross-bellowing like enraged crewcut men in dispute locusts buzzing from positively everywhere.Īnd yet was happening for the first time. The two of us were sharing, the way we did so often back then, an almost mystical feeling of sibling camaraderie as we lay there trying to discern meaningful shapes in the clouds. Soon, wherever I looked, there it was, that old world, now the one and only world, right down to a robin on a leaning fencepost cocking its head at me, like, Remember me, random robin from your youth?īased on the shirt I was wearing (red-white-and-blue peace sign in the center like a bull’s-eye), I was thirteen, Clara ten (those sweet braids). Then came the youthful Memory Body, gradually occupying the Randomly Recalled Iconic Space: our yard on Plymouth Street, me on my back on the lawn, my sister, Clara, there beside me. It started, as usual, with a vague feeling of remembering: me, grass, summertime. “To feel O.K.,” she said, “in this crazy old- wope. “For sure,” I said, anxious as always that this time it wouldn’t work. “Everybody’s got a right,” she said absently. The first player to occupy all 10 destination holes is the winner.By law she had to stand there waiting until it kicked in. The object of the game is to be the first player to move all ten marbles across the board and into the triangle opposite. The game was invented in Germany in 1892 under the name "Stern-Halma" as a variation of the older American game Halma. HalmaMove-me is an abstract strategy board game played on a board with a hexagram for 2-6 players, ages 7+. Physome Round Chinese Checkers - 13.5" with glass marblesĬhinese Checkers (Halma Move) increases brain function, Playing HalmaMove-me is an exercise for your brain.
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