Backgammon is my game of choice. Has been since I graduated from Shoots and Ladders. It and tennis were my two recreations until cancer confounded my feet, then backgammon reigned supreme. I sometimes fantasize, if I must go ga-ga, beguiling the tedium with dice and checkers. I do not dread death, but I do dementia. Death is sleep. Dementia is waiting in the airport for a flight never boards.
Except on vacations, I played backgammon on the sly. It felt like dereliction from my important purpose. My purpose changed but never its importance. One way or other I would redeem mankind.
Experience batters, then retirement crushes importance. What a fool to imagine I matter! Can one molecule outrank another?
Retirement freed me to play more backgammon, the Internet supplied opponents. I’m a sluggard about arranging sociability. I want to be with pals, but oh, the bother. You may have been invited to one of the parties I never gave.
The Internet, peerless panderer, caters to every need. Magically I can summon a plausible player at any hour. And the play can be rat-a-tat, if your Wi-Fi is good, much faster than in person. Jane and I play person-to-person backgammon at dusk to be together. Yousef and Hellcat, wherever they reside, I play to crush.
Why this addiction to a pointless frolic? A middling player at best, I’m no candidate for glory, yet when the fit is on, I pant to start.
My competitive nature partly explains it. I suspect this stems from insecurity, grasping for parental affection that was never forthcoming, but what matter why? I yearn to win – whatever the prize. Where there’s no contest, I lose interest. I write to win. However long the odds, I strive to outshine makers I admire. On guard, Shakespeare!
Also, I’m a sucker for suspense. In backgammon, better players will fare better over time, but any player can beat another in a single game. The dice are fickle tyrants, teasing, then snatching their favor. Any type of game is a fable: the story here is Man versus Fate. The moral is Humility. Don’t get cocky. Accept your luck – graciously – but do not expect it. Walk modestly in the presence of powers too vast to be known.
Play demands attention: snooze and you lose. Many recreations one can undertake carelessly. At bedtime I can read till the words melt to mush. With backgammon you’re either alert or inert. The momentum fatale could occur any time, when one little inadvertence spells doom. One can get too greedy – or not be greedy enough. The best players pounce like panthers at the perfect instant. You don’t sense your danger and they double you, making this game worth twice or twice twice. Success turns catastrophe in an eyeblink.
Time passes unnoticed. Reading and writing are slow work: I’m often consulting the clock. Playing backgammon suddenly it’s midnight. I forget the world, a blessing nowadays. Even if I’ve lost, I’m peppy.
My online game is rigged. The proprietors insist their dice are unbiased, but that’s baloney and we both know it. Aware of my patterns – for their computers forget nothing – they make me their catspaw, lifting my hopes and dashing them so, crazed by frustration, I‘ll play on – and on. The more I play, the more they earn. I don’t bet – that would beggar me – but a few pennies times a multitude adds up.
Ashamed, I used to hide my addiction from Jane, but she knew. A realist, she accepts human imperfection with a shrug. So far, she seems to like me even so.