from Play

These selections come from Mathias Svalina’s Play, the latest chapbook in the Cupboard’s quarterly pamphlet series. The Cupboard is a quarterly pamphlet of creative prose published in Lincoln, Nebraska. Each volume features a body of work by a single author.

Hide-&-Go-Seek

(for 2 or more players)

Little children tend to disappear. Especially if there are large trees, tall grass or white canvases nearby. One child is born It. He covers his eyes with his palms & counts to 100. When he uncovers his eyes he sings:

• A bushel of wheat, a bushel of rye;

• If you’re not ready,

• Close your eyes.

The weakest children will close their eyes & return home where they will never be allowed to open their eyes again. The It child seeks out everything that has been hidden. He digs in the earth, he combs through the clouds, he strips the bark from the trees & he skins all the animals. When he finds another child he shouts “1-2-3-4 for ______________,” naming the one he has found.

He covers his eyes with his palms again & counts to 100. When he wakes up the other children have grown up & are driving their cars into the lakes, surrounded by millions of fireflies.

Freight Train Tag

(for 7 or more players)

The first child is an Engine. The second child locks his arms around the waist of the Engine, bites into the back of the Engine’s neck & holds there; the third child joins the second in a similar way. These three form the Freight Train. Soon the skin of their mouths grow over the bite marks & the skin of their arms grows into the skin of the others’ waists & the three become one child, sharing blood & nerves & emotions.

An extra child tries to hook onto the back of the Freight Train, thus attempting to form a Caboose. When the extra child succeeds in hooking on he thinks he is the caboose, the extra child is not part of the Freight Train & the Freight Train wants the extra child gone. The Freight Train whips itself vigorously in order to extract the extra child. The game ends when the Freight Train derails.

Lessening the Blows

(for 2 or more players)

One child waits in the waiting room. Another child sits in the well-lit room & speaks into the microphone. The speakers in the waiting room distort the second child’s voice into screeches. The first child holds his head in the parentheses of his hands. The second child continues speaking into the microphone & in the waiting room the voice is indecipherable.

Occasionally the light flickers. Mechanical beds thrum on the other side of the double-doors & the first child looks up to see if the door opens.

The second child must continue reading until he reaches the end of the script. Then he drinks a plastic cup of water & begins the script again.

The script begins: Have hope. Have hope. Your waiting is almost done.

Mathias Svalina is the author of a handful of chapbooks & four collaboratively written chapbooks. He is a co-editor of Octopus Magazine & Octopus Books. His first book, Destruction Myth, is forthcoming from CSU Poetry Center this Fall. You can find more Svalina here and here. You can purchase Play here.

Previous volumes in this series include

Parables & Lies by Jesse Ball, Volume One, Summer 2008

A New Map of America by Louis Streitmatter, James Brubaker, ed., Volume Two, Fall 2008

Subscriptions to The Cupboard are $15 for four issues. To subscribe, or to learn more, visit http://www.thecupboardpamphlet.org.

"Mohgo Naba (King of Kings)" — The Pyramids (mp3)

"Queen of the Spirits" — The Pyramids (mp3)

"My Africa" — The Pyramids (mp3)