we play

Wholesome family games. The options are hide 'n seek, super hide 'n seek (involving the additional element of a tin can), or hide 'n seek with murder. We're all over seven years old, we need death and dying in our FHE games, so we choose the last. The rules are explained as such: dress in black, extinguish all sources of light, draw a card, don't ask round-ending questions like "what does a 'W' mean?," run for your life, die when you're tapped on the shoulder, yell "body!" when you trip over a dead person, and debate the circumstances surrounding the deceased. If you can figure out who the killer is and lynch them before the next round, the game's over and you draw cards again. If not, you'll probably be dead ten minutes into round two. The game's a real thrill. We got all sorts of nooks and crannies at Berhan. The rooftop and outdoor laundry room are favorites. Tammy never hides anywhere but in the washer and Steve and Jessica dance on the roof through most of each round. I'm usually pretending I have the license to kill and following closely behind people until they freak and run or start yelling at me for being a jerk and not ending their torment already with the highly anticipated death tap. I get bored being innocent. But then there was that one time when I finally picked the killer card and successfully convinced everyone that we should change the rules to allow multiple deaths in one round. I killed three people in the first ten seconds and got lynched in the next ten. Way too trigger happy, they told me. How'd they know it was me? Was it the shrill laugh I gave after each killing or the smug look on my face during trial? Everyone's an ace detective. Back to being innocent. I try to follow Whitney into dark hallways just so I can see her go nuts with fear when I don't even have a gun. So mad at only being the murderer for ten seconds this whole evening. Now she starts to get nervous, now she starts to run, she screams! And then she kills me. Oh, the shame of it! I was limed! Now she's got the smug look and no one is going to guess she's it because she's always helping old ladies cross the street and undoing knots in kids' tennis shoes and stuff. She walks away after the slightest wink, the only gesture anyone will ever see to prove her maliciousness. And I'm the only one who sees it, but I'm dead! Pray, someone find me and sound the discovery of my corpse so we can end this round and I can get back at Whitney! No one finds me, no one cares. The game goes on for another ten minutes and everyone's dead. True to the rules, none of us move or speak the rest of the night and Whitney is the only one who sleeps in her bed. Nice. Great game. Who picked this anyway? Let's go back to super hide 'n seek.