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Playing the Game

Quote: "Play for more than you can afford to lose and you will win the game." - Winston Churchill

Nimh awoke from her usual fitful sleep to her cat standing on her chest, licking her nose. She groaned and rolled over, causing Calico to topple onto the bed beside her.

“Five more minutes…”

But the cat just continued to nuzzle her master’s face. Nimh seized her only companion and held her to her chest like a teddy bear, much to Calico’s displeasure. Burying her nose in Calico’s soft fur, Nimh tried to go back to sleep. But now that she was awake, sleep just didn’t want to come. Images from her dream kept playing through her head like a slideshow, and it wasn’t long before she had crawled out of bed to make herself breakfast.

Shuffling sleepily into her apartment’s meager kitchen, she noted that the sun gleaming through the blinds was only just rising.

“Dios mio, Cali,” she mumbled, glaring at the cat, who had followed her to the kitchen. “Did you have to get me up so early?”

In response, Calico sat herself next to her food dish and gave Nimh a look that said plainly, Of course I did. I was hungry.

Chuckling, she fed her friend before pulling a skillet out of the cupboard to feed herself. While she waited for it to heat, she washed her hands under the temperamental faucet. The cursed thing was leaking. She was going to have to tell the landlord about it again. I hope he’s gotten rid of that stupid mustache; it looks absolutely ridiculous.

She cracked herself a few eggs, staring through the blinds at the flag silhouetted against the rising sun. In this light, she couldn’t make out the details, but she didn’t need to; she knew what that flag looked like and what it meant.

She had lost everything to that flag, more than she thought she could lose. Her friends, her family, her old home… even her sanity was in question. Again, images from her dream, few but painfully vivid, rolled through her mind. She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes against them, willing them to go away, when Calico began to twine herself around her master’s feet, purring. Nimh looked down at her and smiled.

She was being melodramatic. She was still alive, wasn’t she? Still alive and in the game. What happened in the past may still hurt, but all she could do was keep on fighting for the future.

“Gracias, Cali,” she whispered, reaching down to pet her. As she bent over, however, she caught a whiff of her burning eggs.

Cursing, she turned off the stove and dumped the eggs on a plate to do a damage assessment. They were still edible, but the prospect of eating them was no longer appetizing. Sighing, she dumped the skillet into the sink and sat down to eat her breakfast.

“Here goes another day,” she murmured, smiling ever so slightly.