Peter Leporid never had an easy life. It seemed as if he mostly remembered what went wrong or who did what to him, if he remembered anything at all. But overall, he felt ok. Ok as in numb, not really feeling anything anymore, neither dramatically happy nor dramatically sad emotions. Everything was a constant grey, numb slime.
Everything he had, was because he had worked hard and long for it. He always said he didn't recognize shortcuts if they hit him on the head and always had to go the extra mile. And he did. Especially for other people. If there was anybody in need that he knew of, he'd help. Sometimes he caught himself thinking "when will anybody ever do anything for me?", but that had never changed his ways. He bought extra bread for the single mother with kids next door and left it hanging on their apartment door on his way up; left an extra hundred in the church offering if nobody could see it or paid the homeless guy at the gas station a meal. In short, a good person.
Today's doctor's appointment was something he had postponed time and time again. But this morning, he didn't cancel again and finally went. He knew that something had been wrong for many months now. So wrong that he had sat down and brought his affairs in order. He had written letters to the people in his life that he felt like he wanted to tell them something once he wasn't there anymore. In the process he noticed how few people were what he'd call his real friends and not just some sort of "useful relationship". And then, of course, the letters to this wife and children. Afterwards, when the tears where dried, he would think "it can't be my heart, because if it wasn't healthy and strong, I would have died of heart attack during this."
He hadn't been feeling well for a long time. He couldn't sleep an entire night and every morning he woke up the same tired as the night before, when he went to bed. And he was drenched in sweat, had trouble with his memory. He knew that all that didn't look good. And yet, he didn't want a doctor to confirm any sort of diagnosis.
He went to the doctor's office on time. Ten minutes before his 8:30am appointment he took a seat in the waiting room. He thought that he'd listen and just be done with it and maybe just be positive about it and it wouldn't be so bad. The magazines lying around weren't really catching his interest and after half an hour of sitting there, he went to the receptionist and told her that he had just received a call from his office and needed to go there immediately.
"I'll call for a new appointment" - and with new found energy he almost flew down the stairs and through the door. Free once more. Even if only until the next appointment.
It was a beautiful day, still somehow chilly, but sunny. So he started walking and soon found a little Cafe. He ordered a coffee and some eggs and the last thing on his mind was whether he was really sick or not. He turned his smartphone to silent, fingered out his cigarettes and with the first deep drag numbed almost immediately his entire body. He closed his eyes for the second one and blew it slowly out through the nose.
"If I die now, at least I'll do it on my terms", he thought. And when he opened his eyes again, he was startled as right in front of him on the second chair of his table sat now an elderly man with white hair just looking at him with a grin.
"Mind inviting for breakfast?" the stranger asked.
"Who are you?" Peter asked.
"A stranger, but a friend" the old man replied. "I saw you coming in and was compelled to accompany you."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing. Well, breakfast. And talk to you"
Peter started to smile. The whole situation was crazy enough to be interesting, so he waved the waitress over and asked his new friend to order whatever his hear desired.
Once the waitress left, he asked "so who are you, where do you come from?"
"I'm not here to talk about me. YOU and you alone are the topic of our conversation. You aren't sick."
Peter thought immediately that the old man had seen him fleeing the doctor's office and followed him for a free breakfast.
"It's ok, man, I'll pay your breakfast, but let's skip the palaver and maybe you want to just sit on another table."
"You aren't sick, Peter. You got caught in the thinking that the more you struggle and fight for what you want to have, the more safe it'll make you and you thought it's just normal that it won't last forever."
Peter was silent and suddenly felt very peaceful.
"Ever since your grandfather died, you have ignored the spiritual world for you were angry with God and all the spiritual stuff for taking away what you loved so much. And really all you did with that negative attitude, was create more work on the other end. You didn't achieve everything you did because you worked so hard. You achieved it despite it, despite yourself, because the spiritual world didn't let you down. It was you yourself who went right into the trap. But you can't continue anymore like it. Your mind controls not only your life, but also your body. THAT alone is why you feel like crap and try to kill yourself a little every day with those cigarettes and alcohol. You need to stop doing all of that and start going into silence. It is there, where you reconnect with your real self and can join us again in the joyful daily celebration called life. Remember, the two triangles in the circle will prove that I am real."
Peter felt how his shoulder was shaking and it almost felt as if a hand was touching him there and he heard "Sir, wake up, wake up" and saw the waitress's face right in front of him. He tried to look over to the old man on the other end of his table, but there was nobody.
"Where's the old man?" he asked.
"Which old man?" the waitress replied and said "I saw you were going to burn yourself with your cigarette or bump with your head right onto the table, so I tried to wake you up. I thought you were dead."
"Thank you" Peter told the waitress. And thought to himself how real this had felt. He looked around the little Cafe but nobody looked like the old man. With that, he took his cigarette from the ashtray but the moment he had put it to this mouth, it tasted very bad. With disgust he turned it off and decided that today would be a good day to stop.
He felt how hungry he was now and took knife and fork out of the napkin to tend to the fried eggs right in front of him. Just savouring the first bite, his eyes fell on the backrest of the chair on the other end of his table. And right there, he could see it, two triangles in a circle, one pointing up, one pointing down.
The Game had just begun.
