Poem: Playing Games

[shiori_makiba]

Poem: Playing Games

by shiori_makiba

405 words in 60 lines

Part of the Berettaflies thread of Polychrome Heroics.

Inspired by a prompt from ysabetwordsmith with siliconshaman contributing thoughts during my April 2016 Thank Muse Its Friday session.

Concurrent with "A Pretty Good Friend"

“Playing Games”

Playing games was one of things

on the suggestion lists for team-building.

All the suggestion lists.

They figured that something

the heroes, villains, and various assorted neithers

all agreed was helpful was at least worth a go.

Adapting games to incorporate their superpowers

brought a new dimension to the games.

It was also a safe way to practice

with some of them.

Like ultraviolet vision.

They decided to play Memory with their own cards.

It was while they were making the cards and

discussing the possibility of using ultraviolet pens

for secret messages and the like when Ashley piped up.

“Uh, guys, I can't see in ultraviolet, remember?”

Tsubasa felt her face burn

as she stammered out of an apology.

She had honestly forgotten.

Her apology was matched

by ones from Benton and Adalina.

She idly wandered if

her blush was as bad as theirs.

It certainly felt like it.

Thankfully, Ashley didn't seem angry.

Maybe it was the swift apologies.

Maybe it was their obvious embarrassment.

Maybe it was the immediate leap to

'Okay, how do we get around this so Ashley isn't left out?'

There was the obvious use of lamps or overhead lights.

Adalina asked if they made lenses for sunglasses or goggles

that could replicate the effect of the lamps.

None of them were sure but they made lenses

that could allow people who were red-green colorblind

to pick out reds from greens so why not ultraviolet?

“If nothing else, a gizmologist might be willing to take a stab at it.

It wouldn't hurt to ask,” Benton said.

Course agreed, they turned their attention back

to making their Memory cards.

In the end, they made several decks.

One that only used ultraviolet markers.

A second that only used visible light markers.

They made a third deck where

half of the symbol was done

in visible light markers and

the other half in ultraviolet.

The last one had one half of the pair

was in ultraviolet and its mate was done

in visible light.

Haruko was invited over

and they began to play.

First they played the standard version.

But then they started experimenting with the format.

Like shuffling together Decks A and B

and restricting each player to finding the matching cards

from their deck.

Some of these experiments worked better than others.

But it was fun.

And what's the point of playing a game

that isn't fun?