Borders

The map of the world on the insurance company website is purple and borderless. Please find the location nearest you to identify What We Offer, Where.
But I am not on the map. I cannot be offered services. I cannot be insured. And I can’t find China. This is terrifying. I should not have passed grade 6. I should not have been pushed along. Or worse, perhaps I knew then. And now, I don’t.

I used to know the names of countries from the Risk board we spread on the card table summer mornings when the sky turned smoky grey and threatened to pour rain or shoot lightening at our sailfish. Stay. Inside. A reprieve from the doing imposed by the sun.

Imagine, a game called Risk. A riveting game of war and tiny square troops in rainbow colors that traded hands on the roll of a die. I never understood how troops could be singular. or plural.

My dead brother won. Cheated, mostly, but never lost. He walked away sometimes or changed the rules, depending on our susceptibility on any given day.

I’ll take Irkutsk.

If you can’t pronounce it, you don’t deserve to own it.

I can’t find the Risk board, and I can’t find my country and I cannot go looking for my brother because there are borders. There are always borders.

They are faded and thin, the borders drawn on the insurance company website. Traces of hair, is all. You can make them out if you look closely, and move them if you win.