No and Go Are Too Similar

"Green Light!"

With my back turned towards the action, I began to feel uncomfortable nervous tremors in my body as I heard the sounds of someone shuffling rapidly towards me. In my raised left hand, I felt pain and moist because of how tightly I was gripping the handle of the mini, green, LED lightsaber I bought on a whim at a Sci-fi convention in D.C. two summers ago. In my right hand, the one that wasn't sweating and cramping, I had a red fly swatter that had clearly been worn out through repeated use. The whole ordeal must not have lasted more than a few seconds. Once I could take no more of the impending, intimidating sounds, I quickly raised the red fly swatter and was able to relax, at least for the time being. The movement had stopped and there was silence now, but that just meant that the countdown for me to start the next round had commenced. I had let my nerves get the best of me for the first round, so I wasn't able to pay attention to how fast the competition was moving or estimate how close the competition had gotten to me at this point. I decided to use my next round to try and gauge these facts.

"Green Light! Red Light!"

I switched arms fast, only giving the competition enough time to move just enough so that I could try to pinpoint their location. This time I wasn't able to relax so instantly because, while I could tell the movement had stopped on cue, I was met with the sound of mocking snickers in the silence. I guess the urgency in my movements and the shakiness of my voice came across amusing. Maybe my competition thought that I had done it as a little joke. Or maybe they had figured that I must have been really scared, and thought that was funny too. I didn't like the laughter, but I just kept thinking to myself I need to keep playing, it would be unfair if I stopped now. I also reminded myself that I did not need to risk having my voice laughed at by yelling out 'red light, green light' because what was the purpose of my glowing green mini lightsaber and torn up red fly swatter if not to signal the very things I was saying? Why play a game of such high stakes if I wasn't going to play right? If I don't play by the rules, I risk losing my role as "It".

The next time I said green light, I held the green lightsaber up a little longer because I felt that I owed it to my competition to give them a fair shot after I had so selfishly halted their advances in the last round. When I finally held up the red fly swatter, I could still hear little creaks of movement creeping up behind me, but eventually it did stop, and I accepted that it can be really hard to stop yourself on the spot when you're rushing forward like that. Not cheating, just an honest mistake.

But the next round was worse. It had gotten to the point where I could feel the competitor breathing on the back of my neck, and even though I had up my red fly swatter raised high in the air, I could feel a hand moving up my thigh.

And then I wondered why I was playing fair if my partner wasn't?

I turned around, and swiftly smacked him on the hand with the fly swatter.

"Ow, what the hell?!" he exclaimed, still smiling sneakily.

"You didn't stop. It was red," I said seriously.

He hadn't said anything, but immediately after I said that I felt bad for being so cold to him. It was my idea to play and it was just a game after all. Kind of.

He was still sulking.

"I'm sorry, let's play something you want to play now."