Nicaragua 1

A small girl kneeled in a clearing. The clearing was her secret spot, a patch of dirt among monstrous trees. She could still see her house. She took out a bag of marbles she had found at school, and emptied them all onto the dirt. There were ten of them. She put them in a line. Then she sorted them by color: six blue marbles, three purple marbles, and one black one. She formed them into little clusters, with the black one off on it’s own. The blue and purple ones were translucent, but the black one was opaque. She held up a blue marble to one eye, and a purple one to her other eye, so as to view the world through the marble’s tint. Ah! The trees looked so much prettier now! She dropped them both. She had decided that the black one was her favorite, because there was only one of it’s kind. She decided that it would be the Queen of her court. The purple marbles were princes, and the blue marbles were the queen’s subjects. The queen forced the blue marbles to split up and form two sides, separated by a twig that lay within grasp. Each blue faction had a prince to lead them, and the last prince, the girl decided, was to be made king. But he would have to listen to the queen. The queen had the blue and purple marbles make war, and attack each other. They had spies and secret tactics, and the princes made battle plans. The queen was entertained. The blue marbles hurled themselves with fervent vivacity at each other. The princes were allowed to remain aloof from the battlefield, merely offering a suggestion at key moments, which in turn flipped the momentum. But then, an unexpected twist occurred: it was revealed that the king was in fact secretly supporting one side, giving them the court’s inner secrets. The queen was furious with her husband. In a fierce and rash moment, she tore a viciously into her love, and killed the king. It did not matter to the queen who won now; all was lost. She cried for days over her love’s betrayal. Her grand and previously perfect life had come crashing down upon her in a torrent of pain. But the blue marbles could not stop: they threw themselves like beasts into their own brothers, trying to end the now brutal feud. The princes had lost all their power over the queen’s subjects. Pristine love had been cruelly mutated into pure hate and chaos.

The girl was done playing: she collected her marbles and skipped back to her house, humming with delight.