R is for Risk
“The pink army rises again! I’ll take Kamchatka, please. Thanks.”
Double six.
There was one stalwart soldier left on the continent – it was an easy takeover. The solo soldier had fought hard, but those sixes were too much for any one man to withstand.
Down on the board, the dice rolled towards the soldier like menacing cubes of unavoidable fate. He had been entrenched on the continent for as many turns as he could remember, surviving every calamity that had befallen his country. He had watched his comrades be whittled away by the cruel boxes, their myriad dots jeering down at the merry troupe over and over again. He had built a life here in Kamchatka – learnt so much from people – he didn’t want to leave, although he knew his time was up. He looked down at his lurid green uniform, chipped and battle-worn.
No, he thought, not today.
“I’ve lost him – is he under the sofa?”
“Stand up, George, he must be underneath you”
He wasn’t underneath George. Using every trick he had learnt from his fellow Greens before they passed to the upturned cardboard netherworld, he had lurched out of sight underneath the sofa, into the bales of dust and discarded socks.
“Someone is going to stand on him later, ouch!” said Nim.
Was this to be his fate? Crushed after years of service? thought the soldier. He couldn’t abide by that. From his low vantage point, he spotted a chink of bright light in the distance. A door! He mustered up all his remaining energy and crawled towards it, millimeter by painful millimeter.
“I swear, he was just there!”
“He was a goner anyway…I think we can safely declare the Pink Army has won the continent.”
As those words filtered down to the absconding soldier, his heat sank. He had loved his country. A new life awaited him now, though.