The Sound of Marbles Rolling Away

Denzil Jayasinghe

3 min read

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Just now

The sun had tilted its head differently that afternoon — less sullen, more certain. It pressed its palm onto the gate hinge, the warm stone lip of the garden path, the bruised-green hedges drooping under last night’s rain. It wasn’t a hot sun. Just a knowing one. The sort that notices things without announcing itself. From behind Linton’s old tiled house, the jack tree gave its usual offering — the koha’s cry, sharp and belated, like a truth arriving late but landing anyway.

“Denzil, you sure about that shot?” Linton grinned, knuckles dusted, wrist ready. “You miss, and it’s the one with the silver twist.”

“I know which one it is,” I muttered. My voice felt thinner than it should’ve. I cupped the marble in my fingers, tried to feel lucky, but luck had gone silent.

“You keep playing like that,” Lal said, eyes narrowing as he lined up his turn, “you’ll have to start using stones.”

“I’ve seen him do that,” Linton laughed. “Remember the one he painted with his Reeves paintbox?”

“That was one time,” I said. “And it was red. Looked real enough till someone stepped on it.”

They laughed again. It wasn’t cruel. Not really. But it carved a space in the air where I felt a little more breakable.

My last few marbles — the ones I had kept in an old MD bottle that once held pineapple jam — were dwindling fast. The label curled like dry skin at the edge of a blister. I had earned them: traded, gambled, even stolen once. Each marble is a little planet. Too beautiful for boys like us. Now they rolled slowly into Linton’s pile, swallowed by his grinning fingers.

“You don’t care, do you?” Linton asked, tilting his head. “You never look sad when you lose.”

“I keep score,” I said.

Lal raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“So I know what the day cost me.”

They didn’t answer that. Lal was already crouching low, his wrist taut, his eyes sharp like he was staring down something invisible. He played like someone who had already fought battles. At home, maybe. Maybe somewhere deeper. He was older than I, but I stood taller. Still, the way his hand moved — it frightened me. Precision, purpose, pain. Every strike meant something.

He hit. The marble bounced, smacking mine out of the circle. Another loss.

i wished for a replay but that was wishful thinking.

“You play like you’re buying something,” I said.

“Maybe I am,” he replied. He didn’t smile.

Linton, on the other hand, smiled too easily. He smiled when he won. Smiled when he lost. Played with a kind of charm that made you trust him, until you realised he’d taken your best one — the silver-veined one you swore you’d never give away.

“You could stop, you know,” he said, rolling the new prize between his fingers.

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to keep losing just to stay.”

“I’m not.”

He looked at me, knowing better. That was the thing about Linton. He always knew better.

Dust stuck to our skin like the past does — soft and permanent. Frayed. I had taken my shirt off once, wanting to feel free like a boy who belonged in the open sun without explanation. But Amma had seen me through the slats.

“Denzil, where’s your top?” she had called. Not a question. A reminder.

So I put it back on. And I kept playing.

And I kept losing.