A package arrives

The door clanks, the wheels revolve, everything swings and moves and whistles and grumbles until the roboticised arm of my postal delivery contraptionate thrusts a package in my hand. As ever, the handwriting reveals its source: Ted. Ted. Ted.

I open it. The contents: a board, a blue man, a red, a single dice. A note: “You go first, Toby. I’d like to see you try.” As always even an invitation from Ted sounds like a threat.

I place the board down atop a drum. I choose red, force Ted to be blue. And then I funnel the dice into a cup, rattle, crackle, shudder, roll. Out it rolls, across the expansive back of my piano (gleaming black). It rolls and rolls and rolls and does not stop. I retrieve it from the corner of the room, try once more. Roll, it rolls, roll, roll, roll. Along the warped surfaces of my piano top, along the wefted geometries of my flooring. Again it refuses to stop, refuses to decide, refuses to yield a countable result. The game sits there unstarted, unstartable, everything a confusion, a failure so absurd it’s a most risible conclusion.

I gather the wretched thing up in my claws, hold it to the light. I believe I spot the flaw. This dice is single-sided. A smooth sphere of baffling construction. Inside its glasseous form float ribbons of pink and blue. But on the surface no markings at all. No numbers, no spots. They have no edges, no lines of separation. A representation of infinity in geometric form.

I roll again, move my piece on by one. One step closer to the nearest ladder. One step closer to the nearest snake. I wonder what sort of game Ted is playing with me.