There Was A Man

A man suffered an injury that took him out of the game. It took him out of a game he loved. Doctors told him that it would take surgery to get back into the game and that even surgery wouldn’t mean there would be a 100% chance an injury would not recur again. He was told that the surgery would take him out of the game for a while, and that it would be painful, and cause an extended period of suffering.

So, this man elected not to have surgery. His injury would continue to surface now and again, never allowing him to get back into his game 100%. He would slowly yet inevitably be drawn away from his game.

He was all right for a while, finding temporary patches for the gaping wound that leaving his game had caused. The wound would never heal, however, and it would continue to fester. Time passed and the physical and psychological consequences of leaving the game took their toll.

He often questioned his original decision on not to have surgery. There were too many ‘what ifs’ at the time. What if it didn’t work? It was only now, late in life, that he realized doing nothing didn’t work either.

If he could go back, he would like to have suffered through the surgery, just to know that he had tried everything he could to get back in his game. Even if it didn’t work out in the end, he could live better knowing he had tried.

There was a man.

And he withered away and was forgotten.