You are gathered with your friends
to play a board game
called "What Next"
Four people total, Including you.

First, the person with brown hair
and blue eyes to your right,
filled with HATrEd,
withdraws a card and
deciphers its MYstery:

"You are lost
at sea on a wooden
catamaran. There are others
with you. The phone that shows
where to turn is broken.
How will you unMASK
the land?"

The pitiful one across
from you whispers
the answer: "Unlock
the old, rusted telescope."

It is the pitiful
one's turn, who reads
with self-reproof, "You are on
an island. The boy child
with a broken glass face,
exposing the fire
in HIS head, looks
at you accusingly.
How do you extinguish
the volcano?"

Raising a hand in ANGER
is the disdainful person
with brown hair, who yells,
"Punish the boy child!
His SCARS will never heal!"
The loving soul in red
smiles and says: "Wrong,
you silly creature.
You solve the MYthical puzzle
by joining the flesh
on the boy child's FACE."

It is now THE loving
one's turn to select
a card (the ticket?), done
with a GENTLE flick of the
delicate wrist. One singing
VOICE chimed, "Spoiled farmer
makes you confine the
bamboozled man that names
your strengths. He
SUGGESTS
THAT
the befuddled
has already been put away.
How can you possibly
solve the Conundrum?"

You must answer. Relax!
I order you! Find the solution!
The patriarch has ordered it!
Or else you MUST walk through
a curtain of falling bullets
showering down.
It is the only ESCAPE
back to the beginning.

Kerry Herrmann