writingsmog

By Aaron Cox

When the children left home, he took up logic. Hansel and Gretel became the Prisoners’ Dilemma, an adult fairy tale he told me to put me to sleep. So you see, there are two completely rational prisoners. They have a choice – silence or betrayal. They have them in solitary confinement. There’s no way of one knowing if the other has grassed. If they both keep shtum, they’ll serve a little bit of time. Not too much. If they both betray, the time they get is a little more. Then – and this is where it gets really interesting – if one betrays and the other stays silent, then the silent one cops it, while the betrayer gets off scot-free. What should they do?

We conceived our children in this bed. Now he brings me a strange conception of his own. We lie together in solitary confinement. Him on his side. Me on mine. He tells me logicians have spent a lot of time trying to work out this puzzle. It is rational to betray, he says, but more often than not people cooperate. I think about the injustice of the betrayer getting off scot-free for punishing his accomplice – for it seems logical to assume it’s a story about men. Then I tell him that, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, it’s a story that works in threes. It isn’t a perfect comparison to the story I am wondering about. I know that. And he grunts and turns off the light. As he drifts off to sleep, I wonder if logic is the purest means by which we assuage our guilt.

Who is she? I whisper, Who is she? The three?

He doesn’t betray his silence.

Copyright Aaron Cox 2024

(Game Theory was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award in 2017 and was anthologised as part of that award.)