Winning isn't everything

There once was a man. A man who always won, who always succeeded at everything he did. And he was miserable. Oh it’s not what you’re thinking, it’s not some existential bullcrap, about being unhappy at winning because you are ultimately an unhappy person, or beings are flawed in there pursuit of victory doomed to lose a little more of themselves each time the gain a victory. Hell no, this man loved winning. He reveled in it. He wrapped himself up at night like a blanket in his victories and achievements. He looked down on others who couldn’t quite do things as well as he, no matter what kind of Herculean effort they put into it. God forbid he come across one of those people who doesn’t care much about winning or achievement, he saw them as the lowest form of life there was. It’s one thing to try your best and not be able to be as good as he, but to not even try, or not care to try, Those people were the worst. Winning is everything.

No this man was unhappy because one day while having a cup of coffee, and calculating how high his stock was rising, it occurred to him, “I’m going to die, and when I do my soul will belong to someone else”. Now to someone like him this is the ultimate loss. No matter how good he was, no matter how successful, in the end someone else would gain the ultimate victory, his soul. Naturally the most successful man would have the most successful soul, and he saw it as a game of chess between two higher powers. Constantly vying for the next move to win, and he wasn’t a pawn, he was a king. Whichever of these omnipotent beings collected him would have to be the winner. Now too you or me that might seem like a very important position to be in. The Best piece on the board, to be put in check, giving one side or the other the win. That however, was the problem, the win. One of these two, good or evil, would win, not him. That, he could not tolerate.

So he began to ponder. How he could win? Well, naturally the way to win would be to replace one of the players, at that point it would be an easy thing to defeat the opponent, he was after all the man who always won. The knowledge of how to do that, eluded him at the moment. So he hit on another idea, remove himself from the game. If he never died neither power could ever win. That would give him plenty of time to figure out how to replace one of the players and win the game himself.

As he thought on this he came upon the next hurtle in his plan, “How do I live forever”? Certainly there had been tales of this throughout mankind’s history but, none he new of that were true. Then it hit him, a brilliant notion that simply proved once again why he was the best there ever was. The two players, good and evil, if they could play chess with the souls of man, then certainly one of them could give him eternal life. How to get them to do it though? They wouldn’t want to give him eternal life if it meant putting their game in jeopardy, he certainly wouldn’t. So naturally he had to trick one of them. How hard could that be, he never lost after all.

Which one though? Well, he was pretty sure that good wouldn’t fall for it, being all preachy and thinking he knew more than everyone else, except the man of course, he figured that good just couldn’t be convinced that he was going to lose. Evil however, was a different story. Evil was vain, greedy and always looking to gain an edge for fear of losing. Evil you see is fearful, and that is a powerful emotion to be manipulated. All the man had to do was make evil think he could give him that edge he needed to win, all he had to do was play on Evil’s fear of losing.

So he went about the necessary steps of contacting evil, which turned out to be a lot easier than he first thought, at least for him. Once he was face to face with evil he was confident that his plan would work, he had anticipated everything. All that was left was to make his proposal, which he did. A clever yet simple idea, if evil would grant him one wish he would give evil his soul, upon his death, winning the game for him against good. But evil had to accept his terms without knowing the man’s wish. Very clever! So evil thought it over for awhile, and he truly wanted to win, more than anything, so at length, he agreed. Evil and the man shook hands and the deal was done.

Then the man made his wish, “I wish to live, forever”, he said. He said this with such an air of triumph that evil could not help himself but smile a little. The man was clever, very clever, but evil is what one might call, a poor loser. The small smile turned quickly to anger, and then to rage. A boiling seething hatred, barely contained. Then things got worse, the man laughed. He was happy. Truly happy. That glee turned to rolling laughter, which turned to exploding pride, and he laughed even harder. In between fits of laughter he mocked evil. Told him how easy it had been to fool him, how he would replace him someday and win the game against good. Mostly he told evil how he had lost and that the man was far smarter than evil. That pretty much did it. “YOU ARE NOT SMARTER THAN EVIL”, evil bellowed with such force the ground shook. The man’s laughter stopped, and for the first time in his life he felt something he had never felt before, he felt fear. Evil raged on pounding the ground and screaming. Then as suddenly as his massive outburst began, it stopped, and the slight smile returned. Evil slowly turned towards the man, and granted him his wish as their agreement ordained. Evil turned on the man and began to slowly walk away.

For the second time the man felt something he had never known before, this time, confusion. “Why?, Why are you leaving when you were so angry only a second ago”, the man asked. However, in a moment he had his answer, as he began to change. His body, so strong and agile, began to wither. His mind, so sharp and cunning, began to cloud. His age seemed to advance in decades instead of seconds, and before evil was five paces away he was so old he was practically transparent. Evil never slowed, merely through back his head and shouted, “You said you wanted to live forever, you never specified in what form. Enjoy your forever. And you are not smarter than evil”. The man was to far advanced in age to even hear him.

He had won, he would live forever. He had all the time he would ever need to come up with a plan to win the game. Unfortunately his mind and body were too far gone to ever be able to act on it. Evil was still only feet away, but the man wasn’t even sure why he wanted this anymore, or even who he was anymore. It would seem, in the end, winning isn’t everything.

-End Transmission

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