Project: Unstable balance

02 — A LOSING GAME

I've lost this game we're playing, you know,

But it ain't over yet — come on, let's go!
Just deal me one final hand before we're through,
(You'll see) this time we're gonna win, me and you!
The devil always holds the better cards in his hand,
He looks distracted, then lays a king-high straight just as planned.
Go on, kill him!
Go on, kill him!
You even took my motorbike, (you!)
And left my poor heart black and blue. (Blues!)
Blues is all I ever listen to anymore,
(In my deck) I've got your troubles, nothing more!
The devil always holds the better cards in his hand,
He looks distracted, then lays a king-high straight just as planned.
Go on, kill him!
Go on, kill him!
The devil always holds the better cards in his hand,
He looks distracted, then lays a king-high straight just as planned.
Go on, kill him!
Go on, kill him!
I looked for some poor sucker — none in sight! (Oh God!)
Looks like maybe I'm the sucker here tonight!
So I tried another raise, I made my stand,
(This time round) I think I overplayed my hand. (Oh yeah!)
The devil always holds the better cards in his hand,
He looks distracted, then lays a king-high straight just as planned.
Go on, kill him!
Go on, kill him!
Go on, kill him!
Go on, kill him!

There are people who, when faced with defeat, get up from the table and walk away. Others stay seated. Not because they truly believe they can still win, but because they cannot bear the idea that someone else should decide when the game is over.

This is the story of one of them.

The cards are bad. Perhaps they always were. Across the table sits an opponent who seems to know the game better than anyone else, the kind who pretends to be distracted while preparing the decisive blow. You have already left on the green felt a few dreams, a few loves, perhaps even a piece of yourself. And yet you still ask for another hand.

Not out of greed. Not out of courage. Perhaps only out of stubbornness.

A Losing Game tells the story of that suspended moment when reason suggests surrender and something deeper, stranger and more human insists on raising the stakes.

It is the blues of someone who knows he is losing but refuses to hand in his cards. Of someone who keeps challenging fate, the devil, bad luck or himself, even while knowing that the house has always seemed rigged.

Because some games are not played in order to win.

But they are played.