The Game

~The Game~ [10]

I turn around only to realize that I've already forgotten why I'm turning around. It strikes me as the funniest thing ever and it has me smiling like a fool.

"How do you feel?" Jade's face floats into my view.

"Everything is so slow," I say, and then I can't help but start laughing. "Am I talking really slowly, or is everything else really fast?"

One by one everyone joins me in laughter. Every time someone tries to stop, someone else starts up again, and it becomes this endless cycle of giggles and snorts and gasping for breath.

"Okay, okay. We need to get back to the games before we forget what we were doing." Jade finally manages to say. She heaves a breath and then starts wiping tears from her eyes.

She pulls out the same deck that she had earlier from the cushions. The cards are larger than regular playing cards now that I'm keenly observing.

"We're going to play a little game I like to call 'Royal Court.'" she proceeds to sits down on the floor and starts sorting through the deck, pulling out specific cards. "I'm going to explain it because we have fresh meat with us."

She lays out the cards she's selected: two queen cards; the queen of spades and queen of clubs, two king cards; the king of diamonds and king of hearts, and all four aces.

"Each player picks a card, and that determines your role in the game." I try my best to focus on Jade's words as she starts explaining but it's proving so hard. "There are families each marked by a card symbol. Spade, Hearts, Clubs or Diamond. Kings and queens cards are royalty. Jokers are wild cards, they can do whatever they want since they belong to no family. And aces..."

She pauses dramatically, smiling directly at me. I return her smile with a confused look.

"Aces are pawns. They have to do whatever royalty tells them to do."

I shift to get a better angle. My head feels incredibly heavy, and I think I've been nodding for an eternity, just the up and down bobbing motion of my head, but I know it can't be that long because Jade is still on the same sentence. Unless she's been talking for hours too, which is entirely possible right now.

This is so weird. Everything is moving gooishly.

"Gooshishly?" apparently, I spoke out loud.

This starts another round of uncontrollable laughter.

"Is 'gooishly' even a word?" Spencer asks between giggles.

"I don't think so." Keyshia says. "but y'all know exactly what she means."

"It has to be a word." I explain. "Everything is thick and slow and sticky. Gooshy. It's definitely a word."

"That's different. You said gooishly. Gooshy sounds like Gucci!"

"Oh my God," Jade gasps while smacking her forehead, "she's trying to describe how she feels high."

"It's not a word!" Spencer says.

"I'm googling it." Alex pulls out her phone.

"No, wait," Keyshia interrupts, "let's discuss it first. Like, really think about it. What makes something gooish?"

"Stickiness," I say confidently. "And... thickness. And the way it moves slowly or... Honey... or..."

"Molasses!" several people say at once.

"But honey isn't gooish," Brad argues seriously. "Honey is more... flowish."

"Flowish isn't a word either," Matt points out, and I'm surprised he's decided to get involved.