The Flip (Emotional Game Moments contest entry)

I play a lot of games, but I've only ever seen one flipped board.

Among my friends in high school, getting angry for real in a game was a necessary taboo. Break the social contract like that and you'd find yourself shunned.

Dave was sweeping across across Asia — none could stand before him. He controlled two continents by the second round. It had become a running joke that everyone else had already lost.

Dave was a year behind the rest of us, and a little brother to all of us, including his actual older brother.

He ran hot. Quick to anger but quicker still to leap to your defence. We were opposites in a lot of ways. We got to be pretty close.

I'd gone away to college. I hadn't gone terribly far, and I was very bad at making friends at the time, so pretty much every weekend that first year I went home to visit friends.

He would drive up every week if I asked. He was always ready to come get me in his frankly disgusting piece of crap Mustang with the door I had to hold closed. We'd hang out all weekend, with me sleeping on couches to avoid my parents knowing I was in town.

In my second year I started to make friends at college, and the hangout spaces at home got grosser and weirder as my old friends drifted into party culture. I like parties as much as the next painfully awkward teetotalling geek, and I enjoy the spectacle of watching other people get drunk and do stupid things.

My frustration was that my nerdy friends were now the cool guys who invited high schoolers to ragers. It clashed with my self image, and objectively it was pretty creepy.

Dave was a rock though. He was always there when I called, available to hang out and play games or just talk.

Still, I felt alienated by what my friends were becoming and much more comfortable around the new friends I was making.

So I called him less and less. By my third year of college it was a rare event for me to come home, and I typically stayed with my parents when I did.

My last year away my mom was diagnosed with cancer, so I moved back to help take care of her as she went through treatment. I had hoped to be able to reconnect with my old friends as well.

Truth was, though, not much had changed. The old hangouts and people were stranger than ever.

Which brings me back to the game. We'd played many a game of Risk before, but we'd never once finished. Typically people would drop out one by one with the remaining players stuck fighting back and forth over Europe and Africa until somebody quit or fell asleep. It had long been a dream to actually end a game with a winner.

This particular game was organized with no such hope though. It was just meant to be an afternoon of gaming on neutral ground to try and reconnect.

Nonetheless, Dave was killing it. He'd already all but knocked out his brother, and the other three players had battered each other badly. He held Australia and Asia and had most of Europe. The Americas were a patchwork. I held Africa. As the only other player with a continent, I was next.

We were so close to ending a game, and Dave was not shy about how excited he was to be the first true victor.

Then it came, the flip.

Dave's endless horde attacked me in Egypt. He cleared all but one of my troops flawlessly, but the last one refused to budge. He rolled and lost once, twice, three times.

He growled, “Again.” Hope rose in my chest. Maybe I could actually hold him off.

The dice fell and the board flew.

Honestly, I thought it would be funny.

We'd spent the whole game complaining that he could not be stopped. I thought at least his brother would enjoy it. I grinned madly in a room full of slack jaws.

No one even chuckled. We just picked up the game. His older brother gave me an earful about how disappointed they all were that I'd taken away their chance to have a winner. Dave was just quiet.

Our group of friends did not reform. There are lots of reasons for this of course, it's not all my fault. Not long afterwards I moved away.

A few years later Dave was t-boned while in pursuit of a suspect.

The game was not the last time I saw him. It's just the last story I have with him. Something so small and stupid.

At the funeral we all talked about how much we regretted not seeing him more. Well I did anyway. The implied lesson was that we should now spend more time together. Play more games. Not dwell on regrets but live!

But we didn't. I didn't. We all have jobs and other friends, houses and kids.

Life moves on, no matter what you do.

I didn't know that was going to be the last story we'd have together. I didn't know we'd never get to finish a game of Risk. You never know when it's going to be the last time you see anyone, or do anything.

Not long after the funeral I went to a board game club for the first time. I met my wife there and lots of great friends too. If I hadn't turned away from my old group I never would have had my son.

It's not a lesson, it's just what happens.