by Peter Löcke //
"I want to play a game." Fans of horror thrillers automatically think of John Kramer and the Saw film series when they hear this sentence. The killer Saw or Jigsaw has cult status in bloody cineaste circles. In this column, things remain bloodless.
I just want to play board games. Perhaps these will experience a renaissance when the blackout threatens. After all, you can't look at the dark display of your smart phone forever. And because quite a few people have forgotten how to communicate in analog form, games could be helpful. As a bridging technology to regain speaking skills, if you like. A nice board game with the family while chaos reigns on the streets. Chaos and anarchy are romantic, as I know after reading Habeck's children's books at the latest. Instead of bread and games, there are games without bread by candlelight. So I went searching in dusty cellars and found what I was looking for.
Monopoly? I remember. The capitalist game that lasts forever. I realized early on in my life that I would never make it to Schlossallee and would have to make do with a rented apartment in Badstraße instead. Nevertheless, I shudder when I study the playing card. Badstraße has a property value of 1200 German marks? The whole street? That's only a good 600 euros. What about operating and ancillary costs and, above all, electricity? Find a 60 square meter apartment for that kind of money. And I'm talking about the rent for an apartment, not the purchase of the entire block of flats. Oh well. Prices have just gone up. Monopoly will probably be banned anyway because it's about colonialism, patriarchy, private property and house fights. Speaking of banned. Political correctness already existed in the 1980s.
Risk! There lies my favorite game. As a child, I was the proud owner of the politically incorrect version of Risk. I was still allowed to conquer territories and destroy opponents. In later versions, countries like Irkutsk were to be liberated and the opponent's armies disbanded. There were also diplomatic negotiations in the language-corrected edition. How boring! Among friends, we played champagne or seltzer all the time. In other words: world power or nothing. Empire or less than Irkutsk. I wonder what's on the secret mission cards today? The cards are probably identical. Ukraine must win! Or: Contact the American game master for further instructions! The inventors of the game already knew this, because Ukraine is on the risk board in blue-colored Europe and is by far the largest country. Strange. Very strange. Just don't get upset. I don't want to get angry.
Man, don't get angry! Who doesn't know it? The mother of all board games. What a paradoxical name. When I'm about to win for the tenth time, only have to roll a cheated one and then get bowled, I could bite the edge of the table. Of course I want to win and then savor my triumph with a reward cigarette outside. Telling people not to get angry doesn't work. Non-messages don't work. If you constantly tell a small child what not to be afraid of, they will eventually be afraid of everything. When politicians and the media repeatedly shout at me "Don't panic", I get what? Panic. If someone tries to reassure me, I get restless. I will never understand why they still try. Never in my life.
Game of life? There's the dusty box in the cellar. For whatever reason, I've never played the game. Maybe I should read the instructions first. Are there such instructions? What is the goal of life and who wins? Life is played forwards and understood backwards. That is one of my few realizations. At the moment, life is more deadly serious than ever before. That can't be the solution. But joy doesn't come by itself.
Do you want to play a fun game to bring some joy into your life? You don't need a board for that. Just go to the nearest game store while it's still light outside. A well-stocked department store will do. Go to the sales clerk and ask him the following: "I'd like a puzzle game. But Zack Zack."
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One Response
Good evening Mr. Löcke, once again superbly written. Patience is one of those things. I play it every day, dear patience. Since my Tarlov cyst operation. ok. Now I don't want to be petty, most of the nasty complaints have largely disappeared, but the tennis ball that I still have in the right half of my pelvis, which forces me to either walk or lie down or only manage with a seat ring in the car, on the kitchen chair, the bladder that still doesn't work properly, that demands a lot from me. But I'm still alive and it looks like my neurosurgeon didn't damage any nerves in my spinal cord or sacral plexus, otherwise I'd probably be in a wheelchair now. It's the after-effects that still challenge me every day. And I challenge myself. Yes, candlelight and board games - that's what I remember from my childhood at Christmas with my father. The oven was heated and no one worried about gas or oil. Briquettes were shoveled into the cellar in summer. Ah yes, the good old days. Well, not quite. It was just the East or Dark Germany, as I later heard some West German colleagues jokingly say. Ah, you're from dark Germany? Well, I don't have that problem anymore. Then we'll all be sitting in the dark or by candlelight. I've already stocked up on plenty of candles. But whether the lighting will still be cozy in an otherwise cold apartment, let's wait and see and practice patience.... or anger, despair and fits of rage. I don't think anything can upset me so quickly since my illness, hopefully the worst is over and things are looking up, at least in this respect. I'm not being spiteful, but secretly I wish the traffic lights and a few other people behind them the plague and if that's not enough, at least tarlov cysts and arachnoiditis and only one surgeon in the whole of Europe and lots of patience in the search for the right diagnosis..... In this sense, stay upright.