Capture The Flag
“By now I’m sure you already know the rules.”
Vuyisa started adjusting his helmet. In the previous round, it kept bouncing up and down on his head, distracting him from focusing on the game.
“Remember. Your points are cumulative”, the announcer continued. Points from the previous round play into this round. And your wins or losses from this round play into the next round. So you have a lot at stake”.
Th
e clip from his helmet finally snapped in a comfortable position. The sweat that had already drenched the inner forehead cushion gave a weirdly cooling sensation. He ignored the fact that the same helmet was probably worn hundreds of times before, unwashed.
“I’ll assume that you’ve all had enough rest from the career round. Shortly, we’ll be starting the romance round. Your visors will move down, and the playing field will be augmented onto the parking lot, just like before.”
They all stood in a line, waiting for the whistle blow. To Vuyisa’s left was Roan. Vuyisa had beaten him in the career round. His points would give him a head start in the romance round, so he wasn’t too worried. On his right was Divya. He barely even noticed her in the previous round.
“And GO!”
Vuyisa started running. The Fourways Crossing parking lot wasn’t too big. Finding the green flags would be easy enough. The crowd of contestants surrounded him, so his aim was to get enough distance from them to start seeing the augmented clues on his visor.
After some distance, he started seeing an image forming. Could she have the green flag? She certainly looked the part. Kept Brazilian hair. Tight jeans. Glasses. He loved girls with glasses. He slowed down his run, and pace-walked. Slow enough for him to assess more. Fast enough to get to her first. She slowly started turning towards him with a beautiful smile on her face, while pulling a small flag out of her pocket. His heart started racing. Could I win this early in the competition? The flag was a white flag. In confusion, he then stopped.
Her face turned sad. He felt bad, and started walking slowly towards her. “Hello?” he said to her. “Why don’t you want to come?” she asked. Then he stopped again. Her accent was rural. I’m not doing that again. I left that world and I’m not going back. Slowly, her white flag started turning red. And he ran off.
“You may have noticed by now”, the announcer interrupted, “for this round, the flags change colours during the course of the game. The helmet is wired to your brain, and all historical thought is aggregated into the perfect outcome for you”.
At least that will filter out the garbage.
Vuyisa thought that the women from back home were too simple for him. Ever since moving to Fourways, he had struggled to relate to them. They didn’t get the jokes. They didn’t have the witty retorts, and lacked the general social cues. He’d left that life. And wasn’t about to go back.
“Remember!” the announcer blurted. “If you’ve found a red flag, you need to get back to the centre, and to start again.”
Vuyisa ran back to the middle of the parking lot. He was already getting tired of the game, but he was already in it, so the mental effort of leaving was far more than that of staying.
From the traffic circle in the middle of the parking lot, he started jogging in the other direction. He looked to his left. Nothing. He slowly turned his head towards his right. An image of a lady seated on the tarred ground with her legs crossed started buffering into focus. She was playing guitar and singing along. With a well-kept afro, neat enough to know that it took time, but rough enough to look like she wasn’t trying, she appealed to his progressive sensibilities. He looked at her and smiled. She smiled back. “Hi”, he started. “Hey there”, she said back, with her tilted head carrying her cute smile.
He started sitting down next to her. She put her guitar down next to him. She picked up her rucksack and started pulling out the white flag. He started looking at the stickers on her guitar – stickers with slogans that only seemed to be used in places like these and never back home. Thembalethu. Imizamo Yethu. And stickers of afro combs and raised fists.
Performative, he thought to himself. As the flag came out of her bag, the white quickly turned to red. He stood up quickly and started walking away from her. He’d met a few of these ones. Looking for a home they’d never known. Embracing tightly what he’d been trying to let go of. She looked surprised wondering what she’d done wrong. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else” he said to try and console her. And he ran back to the centre traffic circle.
“We only have 5 minutes left in this round!” blurted the announcer. “If you don’t find your green flag, you’ll leave this round with zero points!”
Now Vuyisa started panicking. He started running in every direction. His head swerving to the left. Then jolting to the right. While dizzying himself from the search, an image started appearing directly in front of him. A beautiful woman. Dressed in a corporate suit on top, yet wearing cute teddy bedroom slippers. She had an apron on, with flour sprinkled all over it. Something about her spoke to his ambition. Yet something about her felt like home.
He started jogging towards her. She lifted her head and looked at him. Then she turned her head and looked to his side. Then she looked back at him. He turned his head to try and see what she was looking at. Roan was also jogging towards her.
I can’t be beaten by this idiot.
Vuyisa then started sprinting towards her. Roan picked up his pace and started sprinting too. The baking utensils in her hand fell to the floor as she lifted her arms in confusion. “Hi! I’m Vuyisa!”, he shouted to her. He noticed that Roan started to slow down. Maybe he’s given up. With the confidence of a win, he also slowed down and walked slowly towards her with a swagger in his step. As he got closer, she was indeed beautiful. The most beautiful he’d seen since arriving in Joburg. Yet, as she started reading him more, the confusion on her face started turning to a frown.
The visor on his helmet started flashing red. “What’s happening!” he shouted.
“Oh, you’re also being eliminated from this pursuit”, the announcer said.
“But how! I have more points than this clown over here!”
“I’m so sorry”, the beautiful lady said sheepishly. “I found your eagerness attractive at first, so I made myself visible to you for your choosing.”
“And then what went wrong?” Vuyisa asked.
“Your career points were a red flag. I saw it with my dad. And I don’t want to play the game that I saw my mom play”.
“But I’m not your dad!” Vuyisa shouted. He tried unclipping the helmet, but it wouldn’t budge. “Take this damn thing off me! I want to talk to her properly!” he said looking at the announcer.
“Unfortunately, you can’t just get out of the game you’ve chosen to play”, the announcer replied.
Vuyisa stood still as he watched Roan approach the beautiful lady and embrace her. From the pocket on the front of her apron, she picked up a flag and gave it to him. As he took a hold of it, the flag turned green.
“And time is up!” shouted the announcer from the centre circle. “Next week this time, we will continue with the next round”.
Vuyisa walked slowly carrying the weight of shame to his car. Divya walked next to him, awkwardly embracing a partner. “I didn’t see you in the game. How did you end up with a green flag?”
“I bowed out at the beginning. My family chose him for me.”
“Oh wow!” Vuyisa exclaimed. Seems backward. Too much could go wrong.
Photo by bruno neurath-wilson on Unsplash