The Game

by Terry Schott

  Chapter 22

  If life is a game, then I've done a poor job of playing it. My time on Earth has been boring and uneventful. I've wasted my youth, sitting around doing nothing when I was full of life and energy. Playing video games, working at simple jobs, trading my time for just enough money to pay the bills and survive; not really learning anything or traveling anywhere. I also wasted my middle years, abusing my body with lack of exercise and junk food. I wouldn't treat an automobile as poorly as I've treated my body. It's no wonder it fails me now. The greatest sin I've made is allowing my mind to sleep all these years. When I was young I had such plans, but I listened to the world when it told me I was silly and demanded that I grow up. Growing up made me forget how to play games, and that turned out to be the worst thing that could have happened. If life is a game, and we forget how to play games... what chance do we have of succeeding?

  Excerpt from Earth book called ‘The Game Is Life’

  George Knight (avatar)

  Danielle - age 13

  “There’s a used book store,” I point out to my friend Tracey. “Let’s go in.”

  Tracey rolls her eyes at me, but she knows there’s no use in complaining. I can’t go past a used book store without going in to take a look.

  I love to read. Just love it! Since someone first put a book in my hand and showed me how to figure out what all the letters joined together to make, I’ve been hooked on reading. Most of my friends don’t read, which is a shame. Books contain so much knowledge, clearly written down and there for the taking! The best books provide other worlds to escape to or different lives and experiences to watch, if the story is set on Earth. It’s all great stuff, yet not many seem to know or care about it. If people knew how powerful books were, they’d all have one in their hand or a tablet loaded full of e-books, just like me!

  The real treasures lie in used book stores. Over the years paper books became more rare, and many people put all their books on a digital reader instead. Many books didn’t get turned into digital format. Old books that were out of print, and small, self-published books. I’ve read some great stuff in paper books that you just can’t find on the Net. It’s kinda sad, but I like to find the gems, so I stop into every used book store I go by, just in case there’s something new and exciting to read.

  Tracey offers to wait for me outside. I walk in and say hi to Jordan the clerk. She smiles and says hi back. I come in here once a month and she knows me.

  “Anything good and rare lately, Jordan?” I ask.

  “I saved a box full of stuff that we don’t normally get in for you, Danielle,” she says. “It’s over in the back corner in a brown box.”

  “Thanks,” I say and walk to the back.

  It’s not a very big box, but I open it up and start skimming through the books. I’m not really sure what I’m looking for, but sometimes I just get a feeling when I hold a certain book. When I get that feeling, the book goes into my ‘buy’ pile. There’s an old book on karate, and I place that in the not interested pile. I quit karate years ago. I learned everything I needed to from karate, and it led me to my buddy Trew, but I’m not really interested in pursuing it. I do that a lot. Study something and give it everything I’ve got. Then my gut tells me that’s enough and I drop it just as quickly as I picked it up. There’s lots for me to do and see in this life of mine. I don’t have time to waste studying just one or two things for 50 years. Oh, the poor people who do that! Not playing the game very well at all, if you ask me.

  I’m almost to the bottom of the box and nothing has really jumped out at me. A couple of old books on art, some gardening titles, a few old murder mystery books that I’ve already read… then my hand touches a book and before I even look at it I feel a big tingle of energy shooting up my arm. I almost drop it; I did the first few times this happened. But now I know it’s a sign from somewhere or someone, I need to read this book in my hand!

  I close my eyes for a minute, excited that I’ve found a new prize. I sit there and play a little game in my head. What’s this book going to be about? How will it change my life? Will it change my life, or just help point me in a new direction as I try to learn something new? Is it an old book written in a foreign language? Will I have to go make a new friend to help me read the book? The last time that happened I met Mr. Chan and he helped me read that excellent Chinese book about karma and energy. I really should stop by and visit with Mr. Chan. He makes the best tea. Bah! My thoughts are starting to run around! Time to open my eyes and see what I have.

  I open my eyes and look at the title. Wow! I can’t blink. Is what I’m seeing real? I hold the book in my hand, looking at it until I start to get dizzy, then I realize I’ve forgotten to keep breathing. I gulp a huge breath of air and start to sweat a little. Then I sit down.

  Slowly I read the title out loud. “The Game Is Life, by George Knight.”

  Quickly I look around, expecting one of my friends to start laughing from around the corner. So many of them have heard me talk about life being just a game that I wouldn’t put it past them to make a fake book and plant it in an old box just to tease me. But there’s no one jumping out at me and laughing.

  I turn the book over and read the back cover. It’s for real. This guy George thinks the same way I do, and he wrote a book about it! I quickly look inside the back of the book and find the information about the author. George R. Knight. Hmm. He was 74 when the book was written. Darn it, he’s dead. Says so right there in the description. I would have loved to meet this guy and talk to him. The book was written years before I was born, so he’s been gone a long time. But the great news is I still get to talk to him, in a way, by reading this wonderful book he left behind!

  I flip open to the first chapter and start to read:

  “We live in a game. Somewhere ‘out there,’ our real bodies are plugged into a very real virtual reality simulation. Earth isn’t real, but it’s important to those running the game. What we call God, or Allah, or the Universe, or whatever spiritual name religion gives it… is simply the supercomputer that runs our universe. How can I be so sure of this? Because I’ve spoken to it. And it has spoken to me…”

  Oh, this is going to be fun to read! I walk to the counter and pay for the book. “You find something good?” Jordan asks.

  “I think I did,” I say.

  I walk outside and tell Tracey I’m feeling a bit tired and need to head home. She gives me a hug and we each go our separate ways. Once I go around the corner I sprint as fast as I can to get home.

  I run into the house and up the stairs, not bothering to take my shoes off. No one is home until tonight, so that gives me a few hours to get into this book. Before I start to read I sit down at my computer and log in to the video chat program, hoping to see that he’s near his computer. Yes! He’s there.

  I turn on my camera and then click on his name. A couple of seconds later, the blank video screen comes online and there he is, that great smile on his face, his messy room showing in the background. “Hey, Danni. What’s up?” he asks.

  I smile excitedly. “Hiya, Trew. I just found something super cool! You need to go hunting.”

  Trew leans forward. “What have ya got, hun?” He’s started calling me that, and I kind of like it. The guy is incredible. If I could put a poster of who I want to date on my wall, it wouldn’t be any movie star or famous singer. It would be Trew. Of course, I haven’t told him that; I’m not crazy. We talk all the time, and we really do like and do a lot of the same things. He’s just a bit older than me, but not even a year, so no big deal, right? He loves old books too, and we constantly share when we find good ones. He even shares my ‘crazy ideas’ about this all being just some game. And we both have the magic. It’s fun when we get together, which is tough since we live about four hours away from each other. When we get our driver’s licenses, though… well, that’s too far away to think about.

  “Trew, you have got to go hunting for this old book I just found.” I hold it up clos
e to the camera for him to read the title.

  He laughs out loud. “Awesome.”

  I smile. We really do think alike. “Tell me about it! Some real old dude wrote it years before we were born. I can’t wait to get to reading it. You should go out and try and find a copy right now. I want to read it at the same time. What do you think?”

  “I think that’s a great idea, hun,” he says. “I also think the universe has one hell of a sense of humour. Look what I just got home with and was going to log in to show you.” He holds up a copy of the exact same book in his hand.

  I laugh out loud. It’s always a surprise when this kind of thing happens, although it seems to happen more and more. “That’s so cool!” I say.

  “It sure is,” Trew says. “I wonder who this guy was. George R. Knight really rings a bell in my mind. A loud bell. I wonder if I knew him in a past life?”

  I shrug, “It’s possible. So let’s get to reading it?”

  Trew grins, “Well, then, since you have a copy too, it looks like a fair race. On your mark.”

  “Go!” I laugh and open the book. We keep the video link open and start reading together, as close as we can be.

  For now.