Let’s call it a simple child’s game of “House.” The mother, the father, the picturesque house—the life. Then the baby starts crying and the children get more hyped up, and at the end of the game, the father ends up dying in a fatal cattle-stampede incident. Or at least that’s the way it goes in his “House.”

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The house is created simply; wood planks slanting up, lining the house, and the porch made of rough, molding stone that becomes extremely slippery in rain. The son’s face is hidden behind the father’s back. As it usually turns out in children’s games of “House,” the father is shorter than the son. This is no expectation. The son’s black hair is matted to his wet scalp and he whimpers.

“It’s cold,” the son complains.

“Too bad,” replies the father, pushing himself from his father’s grasp. He stalks into the house, slams the door behind him, and doesn’t regret not letting his son in first. In these sorts of games, you always forget that fathers should be treated in a fatherly manner until you send them off to work and they fall in love with the secretary.

It’s cold inside the house, too, the son notes, plopping himself onto the cushiony pile of pillows that was called a couch. It was hard to believe it was a couch. Just like, in the games, how the parents wouldn’t let them use the couch, so they bunched together pillows. This couch was just like that.

“Son!” In these sorts of games, the people don’t ever have names. It’s just “son” and “father” and “momma” and “daughter.”

“Yes, father?” asks the son cautiously, as if creating too much of a loud noise would disturb his father’s temporary peace.

“Clean the dishes!” Small children always have fun in pretending to clean dishes. But this son swipes himself off the couch and mutters to himself with annoyance as he makes his way to the sink and begins to wash. Swish, waggle, wash, scrub, the repeated sound of dishes being washed.

It had to come in some time. The girly mother and daughter flounced in, giggling all the time. The small children girls rarely want to be anything but rich, snobby women with lots of time on their hands so they go shopping.

“I love your shirt!” cries the woman.

“I know, isn’t it the best?” responds the daughter. It’s clearly not a question. It is a simple, true fact. “Oh yea.” The daughter just remembers she has to return the compliment. “Those earrings are great!” she says optimistically. The earrings aren’t. They’re giant, take-over-the-world hoops that dangle from the mother’s large ears, ruining her features completely. But there’s no choice in a situation like this, where all the mother bought was hideous things and those earrings.

“Son,” calls the mother, making her way into the kitchen, dropping trinkets out of her bags all the time. They are random objects; gumballs, bracelets, pencils, and such. Small children never find real objects like pearls and cute clothing, so they usually find their way into a random drawer at the bottom of the basement and take what they can find and steal their mother’s old shopping bags. That’s what it looks like here, in Son’s obscure version of “House.”

“Yes?” questions the son immediately, straightening and cleaning his hands of all dish-grime. His mother is the demanding sort; nit-picky about all cleanliness.

“Bring my things up to my room.” As the soon obeys, there is a loud shout from the room upstairs.

“Father?” cries the mother, craning her neck up the stairs and searching for her husband’s presently-whooping mouth.

“I’ve got the job!”

Those words echo through the house and send all people into a badly-acted scene of drama. The daughter sinks onto the ground and begins to cry, the mother mutters incoherent things, and the son stops dead in his tracks, his happiness concealed within mounds of fake sadness.

“Why, Father?” he questions, watching his father gather up things. He doesn’t feel anything as his father packs all of his old, worn-out clothing. The small children can never find real ties and such, so they gather their father’s old, torn ones. That’s what this father’s wardrobe looked like, drab and ripped.

“It’s the dream-job of mine,” responds the father flatly. The conversation is dropped and is left, lingering awkwardly in the air. The son disappears out of the room.

All three of the remaining family members gather at the door as the father walks out, lugging all of his belongings behind him. Usually, at this point in the game, the children begin to think they are the characters. Sincere tears let themselves race down the daughter’s cheeks. She doesn’t earnestly want her father to go. She just thought he did before he actually left.

“We’re rid of him for good,” says the mother definitely.

“But is that good?” asks the daughter.

“I don’t know.”

An eerie silence floats around the family members. All of them spread apart from each other, as if their togetherness could ruin their train of thought. The son goes away, wondering about life and whether it’s ever good to loose somebody, whether by death or by cab, whether you loved them or not. The daughter goes away, wondering about her father. Her thoughts wander sufficiently to her snack that evening, but go back to her natural path. You can’t always stay in character on these things. The mother wanders away, wondering about her husband’s love to another woman. She knew it was true, that he loved another. The way he lovingly caressed the secretary when he passed, just with his eyes, made it clear. But she wondered if she really cared. Then she got to thinking about her parents. As I said, it’s very difficult to think about something this heavy for long periods of time—game or not.