"Andrew, it's a beautiful day. You've got to come outside."
"Can't. Paper due tomorrow."
"Come on. It's two in the afternoon: you have plenty of time. Everyone else is going outside, and we'll all take a walk or something."
I wasn't entirely unhappy about having an excuse to do something else, so I decided to go along. It was a stressful semester, and I had a ton of work, but I decided it would be nice to take a break. Joe and I met up with Jennifer, Angela, Robert, and Eric, and we all walked out of the dorm together, mostly talking about how we all had too much work to do, and shouldn't be taking a walk in the first place.
We reached the upper quad, a large area of grass crossed by paved foot paths, and looked around. It really was a beautiful day, so a lot of people had come outside. Some of them seemed to be studying, but others were sunning themselves, napping, or tossing a frisbee around. "You know, I think I've forgotten how to enjoy the sun," Jennifer complained, "I used to be able to enjoy something like this, but now all I can think about is my next problem set."
Eric grinned, and said. "I remember," and then, tapping her on the shoulder, he ran off and shouted, "You're IT!"
The rest of us looked at Jennifer for a moment, and then scattered. After a moment, she ran after Joe. It was difficult to maneuver around the other people using the field, not just avoiding people on the ground, but trying not to run between people throwing frisbees. Jennifer eventually tagged Joe, who managed to catch me soon after.
I ended up following Angela to a large tree in the middle of the quad, but as soon as she touched it she announced, "Safe!" and I ran off after Jennifer. Shortly after I got Jennifer, there was suddenly a brief, strong breeze, which knocked papers all over the quad and sent people scrambling to collect their work. For a moment I couldn't tell where Jennifer was, until I saw a little kid running straight towards Eric, nearly getting hit by a frisbee in the process.
I blinked, and realized it was Jenny, and started running again. I saw Jenny tag Eric, and swore I saw Eric shrink into a little kid too. And then I realized that that was Eric, who started running towards me. Eric was willing to hop over people and ignore frisbee, while I wasn't, so it wasn't too long before he caught up with me.
As soon as he tagged me, I felt strangely dizzy for a moment, and then cleared my head and ran after Joe. Suddenly the game had become much more important, and I stopped worrying about bothering other people, occasionally jumping over people when necessary.
It didn't take too long to get Joey, and he went off after Robert. Eventually he got Bobby, who went after me, and the game kept going. In fact, we kept playing until recess was over, and we had to go back to kindergarden.