G – The Game or Trust and Consequences

G –  The Game or Trust and Consequences*

Tick, tick, tick, tick… the clock keeps ticking. All I can do is watch it. With my hands tied behind my back and my feet strapped to a chair, I have nowhere to go, and time is running out. 

I never should have played this stupid game. Of course, it was Ronald, my friend I’ve known since elementary school, who said it would be fun. “You just pay your $100.00, and then you’re taken blindfolded to some location, and all you have to do is be the first to find your way home.” 

“What could possibly go wrong?”

I thought, “Why not?” Ronald would be with me, right? Wrong! Ronald neglected to tell me that each participant in this so-called game would be taken to a different location. They would then be tied up. Add to all the fun, they would be gagged so that they couldn’t call for help. Once confined and restricted, the blindfold at least was to be removed, and they were left alone. The perpetrators of this event remained masked so as not to be identified. 

So here I sit. I assumed someone would eventually come looking for me if I just sat there, and I would be released. But then, I hadn’t counted on the other piece of the game I hadn’t been told about. Placed in a bowl filled with, from the smell of it, gasoline, there was a candle that was lit and slowly melting. Now, should that candle burn down to the level of the gasoline, the gasoline would ignite, leaving me helpless and probably burned alive in this room or cabin as it burned to the ground.

So here I sit. Or should I say here I…well, let’s just say that my fear and anxiety have made my bowels release their contents. 

I can hear the noise of automobiles outside the room I’m in. I need to calm down and think. 

Then I remembered my MacGyver jackknife that I always keep in my pocket. If I could only free one hand, I might be able to get it out. Think, Harvey, think. In movies, whenever someone is tied up, they always rub their restrained wrists back and forth on whatever they’re tied to. So that’s what I decided to do. My movement doesn’t fray the rope as on TV; it scorches my wrists instead. But it eventually allows me to wriggle my right hand enough so that it slowly pushes free from the chair it was tied to. With that freed hand, I reach into my pocket for the knife. Did you ever try to open a pocket knife with one hand? It’s not easy, but I manage to get it open to cut the rest of the offending ropes that bind me. 

Of course, the door to escape this enclosure is locked. I look for another way to get out as the candle burns lower and lower and the clock continues to tick. And…wait a minute…It’s A CANDLE, which means it can be blown out. When you’re stressed, your mind can forget simple things. 

Needless to say, I did eventually get out and find my way home. I was the last person to arrive back home.

“Wasn’t that great!” Ronald said when he finally saw me. 

“Yeah…no,” was my reply. 

With soiled pants, rope burns on my wrists, and a heart rate that felt like I was a thoroughbred competing in the Kentucky Derby, this was not a game that I would ever consider playing again. 

Truth is not spelled R-O-N-A-L-D. And his truth, or lack of information, certainly has proven that it comes with a consequence. Hopefully, next time Ronald comes up with an idea for a game, I won’t listen to him. 

Yeah…right!

* (revised from an earlier version of this story, posted in 2021)