Alessandro

‘You’re dead’
Alessandro screamed across an empty playground.
It was nearly midnight.

‘You’re so dead I touched you I did you’re dead’.
They were playing Cowboys and Indians.
‘See, look, why didn’t you fall down I touched you!’
Her friends shuffled their feet and looked at her.
She had run towards them and stopped as they encircled her.
‘Listen, Alessandro’
‘Alessandro?’ They never called her that.
They called her Alley.
They were nervous.
‘Yeah’ she smiled.
‘We, talking, and’ a sob clenched his throat.
‘We don’t want to play with you’.
Alessandro began to laugh.
‘Right guys, but I got you come on!’
They looked at each other.
Some had tears in their eyes.
‘Alessandro’ they huffed their whines into their chest and exhorted ‘we don’t want to play with you’.
‘I got you why won’t you guys believe me!’ Her plump cheeks began to waver.
‘Alley’
‘Alessandro.’
‘Alessandro’ here it came again ‘please go away’.
Alessandro’s reply was cracked
‘You go away, I got you’.
‘Sorry’
‘But I got you. I got you and you didn’t die’.
Alessandro they kept repeating.
Some were silent. Some rubbed their eyes with their fists.
‘I got you though, I did. Why won’t you believe me when I say so? I got you, I got you’.
Her friends walked away leaving her alone as she dropped to her knees. Her skin grazed and bloodied as she dragged her knees across the playground. Bone and rock sandwiched skin.
‘But I got you’. She began to cry ‘I got you, I did, you’re dead, I got you, why won’t you believe me’
She didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to be with them. She screamed into their direction:
‘you’re dead you’re dead you’re dead, go away you’re dead’.
That was the last time she played cowboys and Indians.