The Game

Under a cloudless sky studded with countless stars, inside a floating cabin anchored in Baffin Bay, a venerable angler falls into a deep sleep, exhausted from wading all day. Old Walter Williams finds solitude on the solo trips he regularly makes into the wide waters south of Corpus Christi. In the wee hours of this particular crisp, clear night, the man's mind generates a puzzling dreamscape.

In the vision, Mr. Williams finds himself seated at the picnic table just inside the front door of the floater, where he and his friends, family members and partners break bread, tell lies, drink beer and occasionally play card games. He feels as though he's looking into a mirror; on the opposite side of the table he sees himself. But when he moves, the other version does not move with him. The dreamer then realizes he's looking at his alter ego.

To his left sits a third figure, dressed in drab garb, with a hoodie pulled up to shroud his face, his hands folded in his lap. Wally wonders how he knows the gender of the third one, since he can't see any of his features, but he's certain the figure is male.

In a whoosh, a mesmerizing female emerges from the rear of the cabin, wearing a gossamer gown adorned with the petals of dandelions and daffodils. Her long, unkempt blond hair flows as she moves, as if whipped by a robust wind, seemingly to spite the still air inside the cabin.

The lady sits down at the table's fourth seat, to Wally's right. She turns and smiles at him, her ivy-green eyes gleaming, her plump, rosy lips and cheeks infused with light and life. Though aspects of her appearance suggest youth and vigor, her countenance carries a trace of something ancient and elegant, like wisdom etched by the eons. "Are you ready?" she asks.

The dreamscape alters then, as dreamscapes do, and the old angler sees five cards on the table in front of him, another five in front of both the woman and his other self. Strangely, just one card lies in front of the man to his left. Before Wally, five objects have also appeared: his favorite Fat Boy, the key to his boat, his wedding ring, his GPS, and a neat stack of new one hundred dollar bills wrapped in a paper band.

"Ready for what?" the dreamer asks the lady with the dancing hair and verdant eyes.

"To play the game," she answers.

"I guess," he shrugs.

"Then ante up," she instructs him.

Wally looks at the objects before him and pushes his favorite Fat Boy to the center of the table. When he realizes none of the others has anything to risk, he questions the old girl who's running the game.

To answer without answering, she replies, "Yours is not to question. Yours is to play the hand you've been dealt."

When Wally picks up the five cards lying on the table in front of him, to assess his hand, he suddenly realizes he has no idea what kind of game they're playing. The woman and his alter ego pick up their cards and peruse their hands. The dull figure in the shroud remains still as a hunting heron, leaving the one card in front of him lying face down.

The cards have no numbers and suits, like regular playing cards. The player has never seen cards like these, but they vaguely remind him of Tarot cards. He decides to play the card with the word "Fun" scrawled over a picture of a child plucking a perch from a pond with a cane pole. The radiant lady nods, smiles and reveals a card which displays a dramatic sunrise. With a grandiose gesture, Alter plays a card with the words "Trophy Trout" scrolled across its top, over a picture intimately familiar to Williams. In the image, a young Wally holds a thirty-three inch, eleven-pound trout, the largest he ever landed. The stiff, shrouded figure does not move, and after an appropriately long moment, he has clearly passed.

The matron to Wally's right cheerfully announces, "It's time to ante up again." Confused, he opens his mouth to inquire about the rules of the game. The master of the moment shooshes him by placing her index finger vertically over her lips.

Wally pushes the boat key to the center of the table and plays the card with the word "Friendship" scrolled on it, above a picture of him driving his boat across a bay, one of his childhood buddies beside him behind the console. The damsel with wild hair plays a card which shows a flock of gulls hovering over the water, waiting for a school of trout to send them shrimp. Alter plays another "Trophy Trout" card, this one with a picture of a middle-aged Williams holding a ten-pound trout. The dark figure stares, to pass.

Still baffled by the way the game is played, but not knowing any way out, the angler antes up again, this time pushing his wedding ring to the center of the table. He plays the "Family" card, which shows a picture of him teaching his son to tie a Palomar knot. The fresh-faced female produces a card showing a bird's nest full of eggs. Alter chuckles and slaps down a "Trophy Trout" card which depicts an older Wally posing with a nine-pounder. Mister Stiff passes again.

Mostly, at this point, the dream's central figure just wants to get to the end of the game, so he pushes the GPS unit to the middle of the table and plays his "Fame" card, which shows him grinning in front of a S.T.A.R. leader board on which his name appears, scrolled on the top line in the column designated for speckled trout. The vixen with the flushed face plays a card bearing the universal symbol for a hurricane. Alter slams down a "Trophy Trout" card with the number 8 on it, and of course, the dark dude does nothing.

To start the last round of the game, Wally pushes the pile of fifty neatly-wrapped one hundred dollar bills to the center of the table with his other possessions and plays his last card―"Fortune." The card shows a brimming pot of golden trout under the end of a curving rainbow. The princess of the tides plays a blue card with icicles dangling from its upper edge. "Brrr," she purrs. "It's so cold." As if he doesn't hear her, and clearly because he does not care about anything else, Alter plays his last "Trophy Trout" card; it shows a recent picture of Captain Williams holding the seven-pound trout he brought to the scales to win a local tournament.

Wally turns to look at the shadowy figure to his left. This time, the man's right arm rises out of his lap. The sleeve of his gray garment falls back, revealing a skeleton-hand. The brittle digits reach out and pick up the card before him. He tosses it face-up, into the center of the table; on it, the dreamer and the others see an old, ebony raven perched on a leafless limb, under a single spade. A chill runs up Old Man Williams' spine as the ashen arms claim all the relics wagered by the only player with anything at stake.

Enraged, the accomplished angler who owns the cabin, but who now feels like a weary cowboy who's been cheated in a poker game in some saloon way out west turns to complain to the playful wench who started the game. "This ain't right," he growls.

"Aww," she feigns concern. "Why the mule lip?"

Flustered, Wally asks, "Who are you, anyway?"

"I have many names," the matriarch of the moon reveals, her hair waving around her face like the mane of a galloping mare. "Most of your brothers and sisters call me Mother Nature."

"I guess I shouldn't have expected a straight answer from someone runnin' a game like this," Williams quips.

"Are you disgusted with the outcome?" the ageless dame inquires, though she knows the answer.

"Of course," he confirms.

"Oh. I figured you knew he always wins," the goddess of all things pure and simple says, pointing across the table at the shady figure, who turns to look at the game's loser. The angler can barely see the faint gray light of the gloaming in his empty eye sockets, also an impossible smile, formed on a face without flesh. "Father Time is the consummate game manager," the Earth Mother notes. "His stock move is calling himself out of the bullpen. And as a closer, his record is impeccable."

"What's the point of playing a game you can't win?" Wally whines.

The sound of Mother Nature's laughter fills the room like spring raindrops pattering tender leaves in a fresh forest canopy. "I'm not reliable when giving answers. I provide context and clues. Your best bet is to respect the drab man without fearing him, and to show me some love whenever you can." She blows him a kiss, and her breath feels cool, like moist morning air wafting off a mountain meadow; he smells magnolia blossoms.

Then Walter Williams suddenly sits up in the bed, wide awake. He hears waves gently lapping at the sides of the cabin, pushed by a whispering wind. When he looks out the open window, he sees the moon making its inexorable rise, reflecting silver light onto the surface of the Badlands. While he tries to go back to sleep, the solitary angler takes a moment to remind himself to hug his wife when he gets home and to call his son and invite him to come down and do some fishing. He also vows to go back to his favorite spot in the morning and try to coax one of the old trout over there to take a bite.