For me, it's a big pink sploosh on my eyeguard and a mouthful of nontoxic nastiness.

"I'm out," I yell, my first words from the great hereafter. I raise my arm and start to walk back to the designated safe zone.

Zing.

Pwap.

Ow!

"Out," I yell again. "I'm out, gunfunnit!"

And so it goes on this bright, windless afternoon at the Paintball Hawaii field on Kan'eohe Marine Corps Base, one of three official paintball venues on the island and homefield to a large and devoted group of paintball enthusiasts.

Today's crowd — a typical mix of teens, active military, and standard-issue weekend warriors — is a good deal thinner than the usual 50 to 90 players typically turning out here on Saturdays. (Sundays draw as many as 150.)

Some have come decked out head to toe in specialty apparel — think hockey meets skateboarding meets the Marines. Others make do with jeans and long-sleeve T-shirts. Some players tote high-performance markers that retail for thousands of dollars, others opt for cruder but reliable rentals.

Today is my first-ever go at paintball. The wicked paintshed already loosed on not-very-protective clothing clearly announces my status as fresh meat.

Time and again, my attempts at Capture the Flag glory have been retarded by a volley of stinging paintballs directed at me by the small regimen of adolescent regulars.

To paraphrase old Emily again: Because I could not stop for death, some wiseguy 14-year-old with a $1,000 paintgun kindly stopped and lit me up like a Christmas tree.

Still, the games do have a 7-minute time limit, which means that however mortally I am wounded, resurrection is always around the corner. And for all of my melodramatics about death as a pink sploosh, I have already lived and died, killed and been killed, at least a dozen times this afternoon.

Needless to say, I still have a few things to learn about self-preservation.

It's a remarkably bad idea, for example, to keep sticking your head out from your barricade as you scan the field for hostile Dutch-Boy Rambos.

I'm tempted, of course, to break the rules and take off my facemask so I can admire the perfect between-the-eyes shot that marked my latest shedding of the mortal coil.

But I don't, in part because head referee Lisa Thompson is watching, and also because Lisa isn't exaggerating when she says an errant paintball really can put out your eye.

The mask stays on. Purgatory is a pink sploosh.

Trading paint

The first paintball matches were held in wooded areas, often as total-elimination, every-man-for-himself free-for-alls. As the sport gained popularity, team play became more common and a variety of games were developed.

Capture the Flag is the most basic and most popular team game, though the range of variations extends all the way to "scenario" games that can take days to complete.

"Paintball gets a bad rap because we don't wear collared shirts and we're not always clean at the end of the day, but it's a great sport and I can't get enough of it," says Paintball Hawaii founder Roland Manahan. "It's my golf."

Manahan first played paintball with his brothers in Southern California.

He says the challenges of team play are endlessly engaging and endlessly rewarding.

"It's all about communication and working as a team," says Manahan, who organizes local teams for national competitions. "There is a lot of camaraderie on and off the field."

Manahan, a senior chief petty officer in the Navy, built the Paintball Hawaii facility three years ago, turning a long-time passion into a labor of love and profit.

It's a modest set-up: Three (soon to be five) playing fields with strategically placed inflatable pyramids and cylinders, stacked tractor tires and blue plastic boxes that look suspiciously like Port-a-Potties, both lined with simple cord and surrounded by a thick growth of haole koa. The staging area consists of a few large tents, some picnic and spool tables and a couple of long benches.

Because of the facility's affiliation with the Single Marine and Sailor Program, active-duty soldiers can earn credit for serving as volunteer referees. Manahan also allows avid regulars like 13-year-old Killian Caldwell and 14-year-old Chazzman Chung to barter referee duty for free play and ammo.

Just shoot me

"I like the adrenaline," says Caldwell, who's been playing for nearly half his life. "It's fun to be able to shoot people without hurting them."

Thompson, the head referee, was drawn into the sport by her son, Christopher.

"He's been playing for three years," she says. "I used to come and watch him play, and then one day he talked me into trying it myself. Now I'm addicted."

Like many players, Thompson said she had to get over her initial anxiety about just how sore an 11-millimeter plastic ball filled with paint actually feels hitting one's body at a velocity of 285 feet per second.

"I was intimidated," she says. "But once I took that first hit and realized it wasn't going to kill me, I was all about going out again.

"With the adrenaline going, you don't feel it that much."

Thompson, whose husband, William, recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, says paintball has been a good outlet for stress. And she loves the fact that anyone can play and excel.

"We see 10-year-old kids playing with their grandparents," Thompson says. "You don't have to be in shape. You don't even have to know what you're doing to have fun."

Make splat, not war

Paintball's quasi-militaristic appearance has led to some irksome assumptions about the type of people who play the sport.

"People think we're warmongers," Manahan says.

"But really, it's just a good stress reliever. What better way to take out your frustrations at the end of a work day? It's about focusing as a team and working together. I think that's a positive thing."

So does Donald Madrid.

The 31-year-old Army soldier from Kalihi got back from a stint in Afghanistan three weeks ago and he wasted no time trading in his rifle for a paintgun. The fun, he says, lies in the fact that paintball isn't the real thing.

"In the desert, it's a different type of tactic," Madrid says. "My first day back, I couldn't move. Now I'm back into it — just go out there and be aggressive and have fun.

"I'm super-competitive and you just feel a mean rush when you get someone. Then at the end of the day, you've gotten rid of all of your stress, and you can just take a shower and eat really good."

Mark Pelchat, a 26-year-old sailor, brought his 12-year-old nephew Steven Farrow to Paintball Hawaii "just for the heck of it."

Pelchat had played his share of paintball back home in Florida, but never on a flat field like this.

"We always played in the woods," he says. "This is more like an arcade game. I'll probably get creamed by some 10-year-olds."