I slammed five thousand borrowed leriel on the table: 'Two 3's on the board, and a single 5!'
A bluff — or rather, a half-unsubstantiated claim tossed with the hopes of throwing her off.
The human mind is a phenomenal machine. Up to one exaflop — a billion billion operations per second. Eighty-six billion neurons. One quadrillion synapses. Storage capacity nearing two and a half petabytes — nearly five times the Library of Congress.
'Dudo!'
She called it, voice trembling as she watched for my tell.
And yet this miraculous instrument — bathed in fluid, cooled by nothing but blood, never needing to shut down, never allowed to falter — is squandered.
Throngs led like sheep. Docile. Thoughtless. Subdued by shepherds who care nothing for the herd.
Such are the people who control our bureaucracies and wistfully wish to bring change to the world. But change isn't an intangible ideal that can be spat out by anyone with a keyboard and a fragile thought online — Its the methodological, consistent application of this tool we call our minds.
Those minds that are compromised with the thoughts and ideals of individuals who don't give a damn about the 'herd' — They are unworthy of being in positions of political power. Shall the blind lead the blind? If so, shalt the whole world will be pervaded in darkness.
The dealer's fingers closed on the cup. He lifted it slowly. Not a sound from the crowd.
Pitiful...
Truly pitiful. To possess such a weapon and let it rust. I find such people repulsive. And I am sick of myself too — this life that never fit, a one-eyed man among the blind, ideas forced into me without consent, deferring the realization of what I was meant to be.
And the meritocratic boundary that separated me from the indoctrinated and docile.
The marble-white dice emerged, sharp light crawling across the pips.
Right now, as the pathway between life and death narrows to a single roll, as my head threatens to implode and my body to collapse on this checkered board, it all crystallizes. I was meant to be the one-eyed king among the blind.
What is this feeling — this exhilaration — when my heart races despite standing one breath from death?
How did I end up here…? It is a fragile memory, one with gaps and interstices mockingly glaring me in the eyes. My mind has been tampered with. Moments have been stitched together irrationally, with no clear order.
The last memory I have before entering this game...ah, yes... how absurd. I still cannot grasp it. It just doesn't make any sense.