October 27, 2014

I was watching a movie with a friend and he seemed to know the plot while I didn’t. An old man was walking by a bench in park on a foggy morning and a velociraptor popped out from the side. He seemed unfazed and kept on walking.

He was now in a basement of an old library and standing under the pale blue light from the window above. He had been chosen to participate in a chess competition. While sitting by his coach, he started muttering the positions of all the pieces at various points in time of a game that had yet to be played. This qualified as cheating.

As a viewer, I was frustrated that he did that, for he had worked so hard to get to where he was only to squander it away by cheating for no reason. My friend calmed me down and told me that it was part of the plan.

The man was called out for his violation of the rules and was seized immediately both by the judges and a heart attack. Apparently this was the only way the old man was able to seek treatment: he had to trigger himself to have a heart attack in front of others or else he would have been wait-listed forever.

The movie shifted to a first person view from the man lying down on the operation table. I could feel the doctors prodding at my insides as they performed surgery on my heart.