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The Ministry of Games

Anita G. Gorman

    The Ministry of Games had become a bona fide official government bureau in the year 2028. Prior to that time, games had been left largely in the hands of children, their parents, their schools and churches. On a higher level, of course, games had been the province of adult players and the businesses that owned their franchises. It must be said that for the most part everyone had had fun playing games since the beginning of the republic. That all changed in 2028.
    The signs had been there for quite some time. More and more government officials wanted to pass laws to improve the lives of the citizens whose lives they thought needed improvement. Ordinary Americans, as the politicians liked to call them, had so many bad habits: smoking, drinking wine and beer, sitting around watching television, eating eggs and chocolate, smearing butter on their white bread. That had to stop, and so media campaigns as well as laws and government bureaucracies began to sprout like bean sprouts throughout the nation. Then some so-called expert would complicate life by “proving” that eggs were not bad and might even be good for us, or that chocolate and wine kept us young, or that butter, that tasty indirect gift from the cow, was far more healthful than the chemically induced substitute the citizenry had been urged to consume for all those years. Therefore, from time to time the bureaucracies had to find another virtuous cause with which to afflict the rest of the citizens.
    Public officials often mourned the fact that there were so few areas where they could really influence public behavior. Laws could only go so far, and some practices, like the eating of chocolate, were beyond the ability of lawmakers to forbid. Most officials remembered what had happened during Prohibition, when those ordinary Americans broke the law in order to have a glass of homemade wine or bootleg liquor. What would happen if we banned chocolate, the members of the Health Party mused. Would children become criminals?
    And so it came about that a new and quite unusual cause was promoted. The Speaker of the House and member of the Health Party, one Roland Arthur Tambleton, or Rat, for short, was sitting in his office in Washington one day playing Solitaire when it came to him. “Games! We could regulate games! What a brilliant idea!” He quickly scurried across the hall to talk to his aide, Marvin Killjoy, known affectionately as just plain Killjoy.
    “Killjoy, I have a great idea. We can regulate games. We can’t ban them—no, that wouldn’t fly—but we can regulate the hell out of them. And tax them.”
    “You think Congress would go for that?”
    “Both houses are in our hands. Of course, they’ll go for it. The president is a Health Party member. Why do I have to spell this out for you? Isn’t it obvious?”
    “Yeah, I understand that, but regulating games seems a bit extreme, even for us.”
    “No problem. We enact a law, the president signs it, the Supreme Court validates it (if needed), and we appoint a Minister of Games.”
    “Minister? Doesn’t that sound kind of European?”
    Roland Arthur Tambleton, aka Rat, paused. “Yes it does, and, frankly, I think that makes it a more convincing title. Secretary of Games doesn’t sound right, and neither does Games Czar; it’s even hard to say.”
    And so it all unfolded. Congress passed the bill, the president signed it, and the Minister of Games was appointed. The minister turned out to be Bella Antoinette Tambleton, known affectionately as Bat to her friends. She also turned out to be Rat’s wife, but no one seemed to mind. She took to her new job like the proverbial duck to water, or like a goldfish to a bowl, or a dog to a bone. Before long, thanks to the efforts of Congress and the Minister, a large volume of regulations had been prepared. No one person knew exactly what was in the Book of Regulations, but everyone was awed by it and slightly afraid that he (or she, as the case might be) had violated one of its rules.
    Bella Antoinette Tambleton, the Minister of Games, along with her staff, produced multiple ads to highlight the new rules. She appeared on the weekend news shows and developed her own television channel for games regulation orientation. Certain rules were clear:
    All games shall be regulated by the Ministry of Games.
    Games shall include amateur as well as professional games.
    Amateur games shall include anything played with a ball, racket, board, dice, cards, pencil and paper, computer, tablet, or smart phone.
    Each citizen above the age of three shall be allotted thirty minutes of games per day, with an extra thirty minutes granted on weekends, which brings the total to a maximum of four hours of game time per week.
    Continuous surveillance of each citizen above the age of three shall commence immediately. Those not in compliance with the Ministry of Games shall be fined. Multiple fines shall lead to a day in court for those over twelve years of age, with the possibility of house arrest or imprisonment to follow.
    No one is to win at any game. Winning does not conform to the Health Party’s ideal of “Equal health and happiness for equal citizens.” Participation points will be logged into each individual’s private account. These points will not be used for anything at all, unless needed to demonstrate culpability in a court of law.
    At first the citizens complied with the new regulations. They seemed, after all, fair. Besides, the surveillance apparatus made it difficult for anyone to disobey. But, of course, someone did decide to disobey. Someone always does.
    Janice Olivia Yarborough, also known as Joy, was one such person. She loved games of all kinds, games played with a ball, racket, board, dice, cards, pencil and paper, computer, tablet, or smart phone. She also knew that thirty minutes a day was not enough for her. Why, one couldn’t play a full game in only thirty minutes. Of course, according to the authorities, that didn’t matter, since no one was allowed to win. As she pondered why the citizens were now being limited to thirty minutes each day, with an extra half hour added on weekends, she decided to call her congressman.
    Dwight Urban Philips-Everton, also known as Dupe, had been Janice Olivia Yarborough’s congressman for a long, long time. He was married to Sabrina Ursula Everton, a lawyer known as Sue. Dwight had hyphenated his name at their marriage, though Sabrina had kept her maiden name, since by the time she married Dwight she had already made her reputation as a lawyer specializing in class-action lawsuits.
    It was a fine, sunny afternoon in May when Joy punched in her congressman’s phone number. His secretary answered the phone and put Joy on hold. Before too long, Dupe was offering a too-hearty hello to his constituent.
    “Hello. Dwight Urban Philips-Everton here. How may I help you, my dear?”
    “Good afternoon, Congressman. Thank you for taking my call. I’m contacting you because of the new game regulations.”
    “Is there a problem?” Suddenly, his voice seemed less friendly.
    “Well, I wonder if you could try to give us more game time. I mean, thirty minutes a day max isn’t very much.”
    “My dear, the legislature, the president and the Ministry of Games have your interests at heart. Remember that part of each citizen’s day is devoted to work or to school, to eating, to taking care of one’s personal needs and, finally, to watching government-approved programs on television. That leaves only a limited amount of time for frivolous games.”
    “Yes, sir, I realize that, but there are so many games, games for the mind and games for the body, and games for the spirit. I just don’t think four hours a week is enough when you consider all the possibilities.”
    “I’ll file an official report about your phone call. Thank you, Ms. Yarborough.” Click. He was gone.
    Joy put down her phone. She felt uneasy about being the subject of a government report. She decided to call her friend Frances Ulla Nordstrom, usually called Fun by her friends.
    “Fun? Joy here. Listen. I need to talk to you. Where can we speak in private?”
    “I’ll be at your house in ten minutes.”
    “But..” Joy wondered at Fun’s speedy reply and then realized that her friend was probably worried about the constant and seemingly omnipresent surveillance. Maybe Fun knew someplace they could talk. The phone somehow didn’t seem safe.
    Joy sat down to a game of Solitaire while she waited for her friend. She knew it wasn’t the best way to use up her game time, but she didn’t have enough minutes to do much of anything else.
    Soon there was a knock at the door. It was Fun. “Let’s go for a walk,” Fun said. And so they did. They walked through their pretty little town to the city limits, chatting about nothing in particular. They could see the surveillance cameras here and there, moving to the left and right as they walked by. The friends engaged in small talk and more small talk; they were playing it smart.
    Finally, they came to the end of town and walked into an open field. Beyond the open field was The Forest. The forest had no name; it was just The Forest. Joy had decided when she was little that that was, in fact, its name, and it was an appropriate name. It reminded Joy of fairy tales and mystery. “I love The Forest,” she said, as they entered beneath the towering pine trees.
    “There are no cameras here.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. I think that there were going to be cameras, but the federal funds to help the states and the subsequent funds to help local towns ran out, so our town of Peg Leg’s Crossing had just enough funds for cameras within the city. No one cares about the township, anyway. “
    “I hope you’re right.”
    Fun turned to look at Joy. “Yeah, I’m right. So why are we here? What do you want to tell me?”
    “I want to tell you that we need to start a rebellion against the Ministry of Games.”
    Fun looked scared. “Isn’t that a bit risky?”
    “Sure, but do you really want to have no more than four hours of games a week?”
    “No, I don’t. And I don’t want to have all those other rules and regulations either. I want to run in the woods. I want to be free.” She looked around and saw an owl high in a tree. “Hey! Let’s play a game while we’re here.”
    “We don’t have any equipment.”
    “We don’t need any. Let’s run a race, through the woods and back again.”
    And so they did. Fun was the winner. Joy didn’t mind; she liked the fact that someone had won the race. She hated the government’s desire to eliminate all competition. Then they played Hide and Seek, but they couldn’t really figure out how a winner could be declared. “No one wins or loses at Hide and Seek. Especially if there are only two players,” Fun concluded. Then they were tired. They sat down under a tree.
    Joy started to pout. “We don’t have a plan. We don’t know how to organize a rebellion.”
    Fun thought about their predicament for a few minutes. “Joy, do you know a lot of people you can trust?”
    “Yeah, I guess so.”
    “So we’ll start with people we can trust, and we’ll tell them that there will be endless games in The Forest every night.”
    “Endless? How can they be endless? Won’t people get tired?”
    “OK, don’t take me literally. We will play games until we want to stop.”
    “What about the surveillance cameras? Won’t they notice that people are walking toward the city limits and not coming back?”
    “Yes, they will. At least, I think they will. You know, I’m just tired of living in this crazy world of cameras and rules and no fun, and no joy—except for the two of us, course.”
    “So eventually we will get caught and punished.”
    “True, but I’m willing to risk it. Besides, what if we get just about everyone in Peg Leg’s Crossing to play games in The Forest? They can’t put everyone in jail. Our jail is tiny. Besides, prosecuting the whole town would make the members of the Health Party a laughing stock. At least, I hope so.”
    And so they began by recruiting their trusted relatives and friends. And the trusted relatives and friends recruited others. And the wise old owl in The Forest seemed to marvel at the hundreds of children and adults who came to frolic every night. They organized competitive races and had winners, though they were afraid to order trophies. Still, the winners had the satisfaction of knowing that they had won, and they knew that everyone else knew as well. They didn’t need a trophy to hide under the floorboards in the living room.
    One night, a few weeks after Joy and Fun’s plot had been hatched, the entire police department of Peg Leg’s Crossing entered The Forest. Since it was a small town, the entire department meant a police chief and four officers. The dispatchers and secretaries were already playing games among the trees and bushes. Police Chief Ronald Ignatius Gustav Hollis-Tarkington, also known as Right (but never as Mr. Right) addressed those who were frozen by the lights of the officers’ flashlights. In the distance they could hear the laughter and yelling of those frolickers who were unaware that the police had arrived. Right began.
    “You may be wondering how we found out about your antics here in The Forest. Not via a secret code or Interpol or a secret informer. No, we started noticing that the night dispatcher started calling in sick, and the day dispatcher was always falling asleep between phone calls. We decided to finally check those surveillance cameras. Frankly, I hadn’t been too interested in spying on the good citizens of Peg Leg’s Crossing, but I figured it was time to do so. We saw an astonishing number of our citizens heading toward The Forest each evening. So we came to check.”
    Fun decided that if anyone was to take the blame, she was the one. “Sorry about this, Chief. It’s all my fault. I’m the one who came up with the idea of having games in The Forest.”
    Then Joy spoke up. “But I was in on it from the beginning. Fun and I were the original instigators. These other good citizens of Peg Leg’s Crossing are not to blame.”
    Then, one by one, the good citizens of Peg Leg’s Crossing spoke up.
    “I was in on this from the beginning.”
    “I’m guilty as charged.”
    “My whole family is involved. We are not innocent.”
    And so it continued until Police Chief Ronald Ignatius Gustav Hollis-Tarkington, also known as Right (but never as Mr. Right) put up his hands in protest. “OK, guys, you’re all guilty as charged, but you haven’t been charged, and you’re not going to be, if it’s up to me. Men,” he said, turning to his officers, “I order you to find a game you enjoy and participate for the next two hours. Be out of here by midnight, so you can put in a decent day’s work tomorrow. As for me, I’m going to see if these middle-aged legs can still run a race.” And he took off, hoping others would follow him. And they did.
    Joy looked at Fun, and Fun looked at Joy. Joy spoke first. “Well, we’re not out of the woods yet, so to speak.”
    “Why not, if the police are on our side?”
    “There’s still the Minister of Games and the Ministry of Games.”
    Fun pondered that depressing idea for a moment. Then she snapped her fingers. “Listen. There was a time when the Health Party was not in power. And if we work hard, there will be a time again when the Health Party won’t be in power. We still have elections, you know.”
    And so it came to pass that the citizens of Peg Leg’s Crossing enthusiastically began a movement that swept across their county and then their state and into other states. And by the next election, the Health Party was the minority party, having lost a number of seats to the new Fun and Games Party. It was definitely going to fun and games for the foreseeable future.

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