Chapter 16
"Oh man, I thought this day would never come," Joe beamed, accepting the package Frank had brought from home and looking inside. "Mmm, my favorite stripy socks!"
Frank smiled at his brother's joy, "They were the only clean ones that I could find. Do you need help?"
"No, thanks, I'll manage. But if you could, you know...." Joe gave him a beseeching look.
"Got it," Frank nodded his head and turned to look out of the window while his brother was dressing up. Over the years he had got used to Joe's discomfort of being barely dressed when someone was near.
"Who's come to get me?" Joe asked from behind. "You and Dad?"
"Yep, Dad's filling in the discharge forms at the moment and Mom and Aunt stayed at home to make dinner. From what I know we'll have shepherd's pie tonight."
"Aww, shepherd's pie, get me home quick! I only hope there's no kind of party planned, is there?" Joe asked. "Or people coming for dinner?"
"No, why?"
"Because if anyone else says how glad he is that everything ended so well..." there was a heavy sigh. "I just don't think I want to hear it."
Frank only smiled in reply. It's been four days since the terrific night that had almost cost Joe and Chet their lives, what it was that saved them – he didn't know, but he was grateful that everything ended the way it did. So were other many people who had been visiting and telling Joe about it for the past four days and Frank was not surprised to hear that Joe was tired of it.
"Okay, I'm ready," Joe finally announced. "God, I thought this day would never come..."
Frank sighed to himself, wondering how soon he would get tired of hearing Joe repeat that line for umpteenth time today.
Fenton Hardy was signing the discharge forms when a displeased familiar voice caught his attention. "I can perfectly walk on my own, who thought of this stupid rule that patients should be taken to the exit?!" Joe was complaining while Frank was pushing his wheelchair, trying to keep his face straight. Fenton smiled at his sons and passed the papers to the nurse at the desk.
A minute later, after Joe was finally free to leave, the three Hardys were walking to the elevators and when there he coughed to draw his father and brother's attention, "Um, can you wait for a few more minutes?" he asked rather meekly. "I still haven't seen Chet?..."
"Oh, sure, you needn't even ask," Fenton replied. "Frank will take you to him and I'll wait in the car, okay? Only don't take too long, there's a shepherd's pie for dinner today..."
They separated and two minutes later Frank and Joe were on the fourth floor where they walked to the room 420.
"Did he say anything about me?" Joe asked quietly on their way. "Chet I mean?"
"Asked how you were and said he was glad to hear you were fine," Frank replied. "You still think he wants to chop your head off? Don't be silly. He'll be overjoyed to see you."
Joe said nothing to that as they stopped in front of the door to the needed room.
"I saw him only this morning, so I'll wait near the elevators while you sort everything out between yourselves – if there's anything to be sorted out at all," Frank said and winked at him. "Yell, if anything."
Joe smiled at the last comment, watching his brother disappear down the corridor, then inhaled deeply. With a sinking heart, he knocked at the door and set it ajar, "Hi, may I come in?" he asked meekly, peeping in.
Chet was half-lying on a hospital bed, surrounded by several medical devices, with a remote control in his hands. His face wore an expression of boredom and his eyes were fastened upon the screen of the TV set. When hearing a voice, he turned to look at the visitor and the next second his face brightened. "Joe?!" he beamed. "Sure, come on in!"
"Hi," Joe said and quietly closed the door behind himself.
"I'm so glad to see you! Wait – you're discharged?" Chet asked, noticing Joe's clothes for casual wear.
"I am," Joe nodded with a sheepish smile, flopping down onto the chair next to his friend's bed. "They finally let me out of here just a few minutes ago."
"Mmm, lucky you. And I'm stuck here for one more week or so. I'm already bored to death to watch all these stupid talk shows and commercials," Chet pointed his hand with the remote control in it at the TV screen where a grinning red-headed woman was hyping a new food processor. "They're going to continue to discuss if overweight people can wear sexy figure-hugging clothes.."
Joe tittered, "Oh, yes, it's a very knotty topic, isn't it?"
"I think so too, so I'm really happy you're here to keep me company. Gosh, I haven't seen you since then, how are you?" Chet asked, lowering the sound and turning his attention towards the visitor.
"I'm fine, going home soon, as you know," Joe replied. "Sorry I couldn't come earlier, I wanted to, but they didn't let me get out of bed until five minutes ago."
"Don't worry, Frank told why you couldn't come."
"How've you been?" Joe asked. "Frank told me you were doing fine," he added with a smile.
"Oh, good old Frankie, huh?" Chet smiled back. "Imagine a commercial 'Frank. Connecting people.'[1]." The two burst out laughing. "Only don't tell him I said that," Chet said moments later when they calmed down a bit. "But yes, I really am doing fine. It still hurts a little, but I'll be as good as new within a couple of weeks. Wish I could go home, too, but alas... Lucky you!"
"Yeah, I thought this day would..." Joe never finished the sentence, frowning. "I wonder how many times I've said that today."
"Many, I guess. I bet I'll be repeating the same thing over and over again when I'm out of here, too. By the way, thanks for looking in before dashing off home from this nasty place."
"You're welcome. As I said I wanted to come earlier, but..." he sighed. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound left his lips.
Chet eyed him for a few moments. "What was it that you wanted to say?" he asked when Joe remained silent.
"The reason why I wanted to come. I-I've been wanting to say it for the past four days – sorry. About then. For- for getting on your nerves," Joe said ruefully.
"Oh no, he's doing it again!" Chet rolled his eyes. "Joe, there's a cod being eaten by a shark in the Pacific Ocean at the moment, do you feel sorry for that, too?"
"Chet, please, I'm serious."
"So am I! I told you back then and I am telling you now that you're too attracted to all your 'sorries'. Let them all go and you'll be surprised how easier life can get."
"But I was being nasty to you, wasn't I?"
"Maybe, but that was understandable under those circumstances, wasn't it? And if I am not mistaken you apologized then, there's no need to do it every day, okay? Remember in the third grade I stained your bicycle with dirt for constantly tugging at Iola's plait?" Chet asked with a grin. "I hate to tell you this, buddy, but I don't still feel sorry about that. And if you expect me to tell you 'sorry about that' – forget it!"
Joe couldn't help but smile in reply. "You know, the way you accept life, every good and bad thing in it fascinates me. Tell me your secret."
"Secret? It's no secret, I'll tell you, if you want," Chet pushed himself into sitting position.
"I'm all ears."
"Just try to be serious. More or less at least."
Joe put on a straight face, "Yes, teacher. I'm serious now."
"You'll never change," Chet shook his head. "Anyway – now imagine that you have bought a lottery and won it."
"Good beginning, go on," Joe said. "What's the prize?"
"The prize is the most interesting thing. It is a daily bank account, but a very special one. Every morning that you wake up you check your account and find 86.400 dollars there."
"86.400 dollars?? Woo-hoo, I like it!"
"Naturally, but there are also two conditions. The first one is that every single cent that you don't spend during the next 24 hours is withdrawn."
"What? Not fair!"
"It's withdrawn and there's no way you can get it back. You can't cheat, like, transferring your money to another account, you can only spend it – on whatever you like. So at the end of the day there's a round zero on your account. But don't you worry, because the next morning it's gonna be full again – and you can again spend 86.400 dollars on all the things you want."
"Got it," Joe nodded his understanding. "What's the second condition?"
"The second condition is that the bank can stop adding money to your account any moment without a prior notification. Think about it – any moment it can say 'game's over' and close your account once and for all. So, the question is – what would you do if you had such an account?"
Joe eyed him for several seconds, "There's a dirty trick, isn't there?"
"Oh, please," Chet rolled his eyes, "give up all your detective ideas. Everything is absolutely fair. Just try to imagine, this is so simple. Every morning you have 86.400 dollars and you only have to spend them. And if you don't you'll never get any of your non-spent money back. Consider it a game. A game which can be over any moment. What would you do?"
"Right, 86.400 dollars every day," Joe scratched his forehead, thinking. "Okay, I'd.... I can't save it for later?"
"No, you can't."
"Bad, I'd save some cash for college and other stuff I may need in the future. But since I can't... Alright, I'd buy everyone presents! Nice presents, things other people always wanted to have, but could never afford them. Then...then I'd buy something for myself, like...like a new car and a cool cell-phone and lots of other things. I'd travel around the world, see knew places, meet new people, learn something new... And I'd also do some charity, transfer some sums to organizations that help homeless people and animals, orphanages, to firms that sponsor medicine research and even protection of environment. What else?...." Joe was silent for some moments, lost in musing, then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what else. Now, what does it mean? Because there's no such bank."
"There is and that's the most interesting thing," Chet said with a grin. "There's such a bank for everyone in the world. When we wake up it gives all of us 86.400 seconds of life for one day and when we fall asleep the stock of seconds is exhausted, what we don't spent during the day - it's lost forever. And every morning such magic starts again and again, we're given 86.400 seconds to live. And we play by the rules without even noticing it, there's no way we can cheat – we can't share our time with anyone else, no matter how much we'd want it, it's only our seconds to live; and 'the bank' can close your account any second and you won't know it – because no one can know in advance and warn you when your life is going to end.
"The moral it simple – live your life to the fullest now. Spend every second of your life on all those things you named – gladden other people with gifts which can be not only material, just tell them that you care and it'll be the best gift; use your time to improve yourself; help everyone you can – and that's all while you can. Everyone would find millions of ways to spend of 86.400 dollars within one day without losing a cent, but few think of the ways how to spend 86.400 second of their life wisely, without letting go of a single moment .... That's about it," Chet finished somewhat bashfully, the top of his ears reddening.
A little dumbfounded by what he'd heard, Joe studied his friend's face for some time, "Chet... Have-have you been studying philosophy lately or what?" he asked. It was the lamest thing he could say, he knew, but at the moment there were too many thoughts about what Chet had said to pass a smart thought-out comment. "I mean, first you tell me all those things back then in the basement, now this – I...I've just never known this 'philosophical' side of you."
"Erm.... Consider me an all-round kind of person," Chet said, blushing even more. "Well, no, I haven't been studying philosophy, I just read it in one book half a year ago or so. I loved the idea so much that it literally became my personal business-plan for life. The book's called "If that were true" by Marc Levi, if you're interested. A really good book."
"Definitely looks like it.... Mind if I borrow it from you once you're out of here?"
"Liked the idea?" Chet beamed.
"It's...I can't explain it. I've just never heard anything like this before and it's... Hard to explain, but yes, I liked the idea," Joe replied. "I'll definitely borrow it from you, if you don't mind, because...." A knock on the door interrupted him and he turned to look at the visitor. That was a doctor with his usual round who wanted to examine Chet. "Oh, how out of turn..."
"Yeah, he's always coming in the middle of a very interesting conversation," Chet told him quietly so that the doctor couldn't hear him.
"I guess all doctors do that. Well, I think I'll have to leave now, hopefully we can continue our conversation later," Joe said, rising from his seat. "I can come tomorrow if you like."
"Sure. You're always a welcome visitor."
"It's nice to hear. Thanks. And thanks for food for thinking."
"My pleasure," Chet smiled at him. "Thanks for coming!"
Joe was at the door when he stopped and turned around, "Chet? You know what? I think you're a great friend."
Chet grinned in reply. "So you are. Have a nice day!"
Still smiling, Joe exited the room and walked towards the elevators, unable to stop thinking about what Chet had said. '86.400 seconds, a lottery each and every one wins every day....' He suddenly stopped, frowning. How much time had he lost in vain? The time that could have been spent wisely? The time that he wasted, doing nothing or doing small, unimportant things when so much could have been done, should have been said?....
But then his face brightened. There still were billions – trillions! – of seconds to live. A huge lot of 'prize-money' that he only had to spend shrewdly. And he only had to do delay the fulfillment of the second condition. 'So easy, so trivial yet so inspiring!...'
With a light feeling in his heart, he continued walking. As he was passing a room he accidentally glanced through the open door and saw a teen of 13 or so years old. He was sitting in his bed and all his attention was riveted to the black-covered book, the red letters of the title literally screamed from the cover "The Bermuda triangle fights back!". The boy was so absorbed in reading that he even opened his mouth, his eyes were full of amazement as he was learning such a stunning truth, apparently hidden from the world public by some evil forces, about the infamous place.
Joe couldn't help but grin, but just then he reminded himself that to stare through ajar doors was not polite, so he took one last glance at the teen and walked further. However he couldn't resist glancing into another room while a smiling woman was holding the door open. Inside was a man in his mid 30s who was byeing with a boy, who looked a lot like him, only much younger, – his son, obviously, and-
"Whoops," Joe had still been walking while looking at the pair and smiling at the touching scene, he hadn't noticed two people coming his way and he'd bumped into them. "Sorry."
"It's alright, young man, never mind," the elderly man gave him a smile and went further, hand in hand with a grey-haired woman.
Joe watched them go until they disappeared in a room at the farthest end of the corridor, a funny thought creeping into his mind. He shook his head to get rid of it. 'You're imagining the unimaginable!' his inner voice told him. But those three people, three men of different ages – the boy, the man, the old man - 'Looking for sings from above that you'll live long and happily, are we? A girlish and silly thing to do!' He shook his head again, "Silly you, indeed," he muttered to himself and went to find his brother.
Frank looked up from the magazine he was reading when Joe came into view, "Already back? You're fast," he said, glancing at his watch. "Don't tell me Chet did – how did you say it back then? – 'dash away from you' when you came in. He didn't shoo you away, did he?"
"You're being nasty, you know?" Joe replied. "No, he didn't, if you want to know, it's just we were interrupted and I had to leave. Now come on, I still want to go home. That shepherd's pie is not so scrumptious when it's cold."
Frank put the magazine aside and rose to his feet, "It's alright between the two of you?" he asked, walking to the elevators with his brother and pushing the 'down' button.
"Definitely," Joe nodded. "Better than ever."
"Why am I not surprised?" Frank said, watching the metallic doors open in front of him. "And what were you talking about?"
"Some things, and there was one that had me thinking," Joe followed his brother into the elevator and pressed '0'. When the doors slid close, he turned to his head to look at him, "Frank? What would you do if you won one lottery with a huge prize that you could get on two conditions?..."
THE END. ----------------------- [1] Original 'Nokia. Connecting people.' ™
"Oh man, I thought this day would never come," Joe beamed, accepting the package Frank had brought from home and looking inside. "Mmm, my favorite stripy socks!"
Frank smiled at his brother's joy, "They were the only clean ones that I could find. Do you need help?"
"No, thanks, I'll manage. But if you could, you know...." Joe gave him a beseeching look.
"Got it," Frank nodded his head and turned to look out of the window while his brother was dressing up. Over the years he had got used to Joe's discomfort of being barely dressed when someone was near.
"Who's come to get me?" Joe asked from behind. "You and Dad?"
"Yep, Dad's filling in the discharge forms at the moment and Mom and Aunt stayed at home to make dinner. From what I know we'll have shepherd's pie tonight."
"Aww, shepherd's pie, get me home quick! I only hope there's no kind of party planned, is there?" Joe asked. "Or people coming for dinner?"
"No, why?"
"Because if anyone else says how glad he is that everything ended so well..." there was a heavy sigh. "I just don't think I want to hear it."
Frank only smiled in reply. It's been four days since the terrific night that had almost cost Joe and Chet their lives, what it was that saved them – he didn't know, but he was grateful that everything ended the way it did. So were other many people who had been visiting and telling Joe about it for the past four days and Frank was not surprised to hear that Joe was tired of it.
"Okay, I'm ready," Joe finally announced. "God, I thought this day would never come..."
Frank sighed to himself, wondering how soon he would get tired of hearing Joe repeat that line for umpteenth time today.
Fenton Hardy was signing the discharge forms when a displeased familiar voice caught his attention. "I can perfectly walk on my own, who thought of this stupid rule that patients should be taken to the exit?!" Joe was complaining while Frank was pushing his wheelchair, trying to keep his face straight. Fenton smiled at his sons and passed the papers to the nurse at the desk.
A minute later, after Joe was finally free to leave, the three Hardys were walking to the elevators and when there he coughed to draw his father and brother's attention, "Um, can you wait for a few more minutes?" he asked rather meekly. "I still haven't seen Chet?..."
"Oh, sure, you needn't even ask," Fenton replied. "Frank will take you to him and I'll wait in the car, okay? Only don't take too long, there's a shepherd's pie for dinner today..."
They separated and two minutes later Frank and Joe were on the fourth floor where they walked to the room 420.
"Did he say anything about me?" Joe asked quietly on their way. "Chet I mean?"
"Asked how you were and said he was glad to hear you were fine," Frank replied. "You still think he wants to chop your head off? Don't be silly. He'll be overjoyed to see you."
Joe said nothing to that as they stopped in front of the door to the needed room.
"I saw him only this morning, so I'll wait near the elevators while you sort everything out between yourselves – if there's anything to be sorted out at all," Frank said and winked at him. "Yell, if anything."
Joe smiled at the last comment, watching his brother disappear down the corridor, then inhaled deeply. With a sinking heart, he knocked at the door and set it ajar, "Hi, may I come in?" he asked meekly, peeping in.
Chet was half-lying on a hospital bed, surrounded by several medical devices, with a remote control in his hands. His face wore an expression of boredom and his eyes were fastened upon the screen of the TV set. When hearing a voice, he turned to look at the visitor and the next second his face brightened. "Joe?!" he beamed. "Sure, come on in!"
"Hi," Joe said and quietly closed the door behind himself.
"I'm so glad to see you! Wait – you're discharged?" Chet asked, noticing Joe's clothes for casual wear.
"I am," Joe nodded with a sheepish smile, flopping down onto the chair next to his friend's bed. "They finally let me out of here just a few minutes ago."
"Mmm, lucky you. And I'm stuck here for one more week or so. I'm already bored to death to watch all these stupid talk shows and commercials," Chet pointed his hand with the remote control in it at the TV screen where a grinning red-headed woman was hyping a new food processor. "They're going to continue to discuss if overweight people can wear sexy figure-hugging clothes.."
Joe tittered, "Oh, yes, it's a very knotty topic, isn't it?"
"I think so too, so I'm really happy you're here to keep me company. Gosh, I haven't seen you since then, how are you?" Chet asked, lowering the sound and turning his attention towards the visitor.
"I'm fine, going home soon, as you know," Joe replied. "Sorry I couldn't come earlier, I wanted to, but they didn't let me get out of bed until five minutes ago."
"Don't worry, Frank told why you couldn't come."
"How've you been?" Joe asked. "Frank told me you were doing fine," he added with a smile.
"Oh, good old Frankie, huh?" Chet smiled back. "Imagine a commercial 'Frank. Connecting people.'[1]." The two burst out laughing. "Only don't tell him I said that," Chet said moments later when they calmed down a bit. "But yes, I really am doing fine. It still hurts a little, but I'll be as good as new within a couple of weeks. Wish I could go home, too, but alas... Lucky you!"
"Yeah, I thought this day would..." Joe never finished the sentence, frowning. "I wonder how many times I've said that today."
"Many, I guess. I bet I'll be repeating the same thing over and over again when I'm out of here, too. By the way, thanks for looking in before dashing off home from this nasty place."
"You're welcome. As I said I wanted to come earlier, but..." he sighed. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound left his lips.
Chet eyed him for a few moments. "What was it that you wanted to say?" he asked when Joe remained silent.
"The reason why I wanted to come. I-I've been wanting to say it for the past four days – sorry. About then. For- for getting on your nerves," Joe said ruefully.
"Oh no, he's doing it again!" Chet rolled his eyes. "Joe, there's a cod being eaten by a shark in the Pacific Ocean at the moment, do you feel sorry for that, too?"
"Chet, please, I'm serious."
"So am I! I told you back then and I am telling you now that you're too attracted to all your 'sorries'. Let them all go and you'll be surprised how easier life can get."
"But I was being nasty to you, wasn't I?"
"Maybe, but that was understandable under those circumstances, wasn't it? And if I am not mistaken you apologized then, there's no need to do it every day, okay? Remember in the third grade I stained your bicycle with dirt for constantly tugging at Iola's plait?" Chet asked with a grin. "I hate to tell you this, buddy, but I don't still feel sorry about that. And if you expect me to tell you 'sorry about that' – forget it!"
Joe couldn't help but smile in reply. "You know, the way you accept life, every good and bad thing in it fascinates me. Tell me your secret."
"Secret? It's no secret, I'll tell you, if you want," Chet pushed himself into sitting position.
"I'm all ears."
"Just try to be serious. More or less at least."
Joe put on a straight face, "Yes, teacher. I'm serious now."
"You'll never change," Chet shook his head. "Anyway – now imagine that you have bought a lottery and won it."
"Good beginning, go on," Joe said. "What's the prize?"
"The prize is the most interesting thing. It is a daily bank account, but a very special one. Every morning that you wake up you check your account and find 86.400 dollars there."
"86.400 dollars?? Woo-hoo, I like it!"
"Naturally, but there are also two conditions. The first one is that every single cent that you don't spend during the next 24 hours is withdrawn."
"What? Not fair!"
"It's withdrawn and there's no way you can get it back. You can't cheat, like, transferring your money to another account, you can only spend it – on whatever you like. So at the end of the day there's a round zero on your account. But don't you worry, because the next morning it's gonna be full again – and you can again spend 86.400 dollars on all the things you want."
"Got it," Joe nodded his understanding. "What's the second condition?"
"The second condition is that the bank can stop adding money to your account any moment without a prior notification. Think about it – any moment it can say 'game's over' and close your account once and for all. So, the question is – what would you do if you had such an account?"
Joe eyed him for several seconds, "There's a dirty trick, isn't there?"
"Oh, please," Chet rolled his eyes, "give up all your detective ideas. Everything is absolutely fair. Just try to imagine, this is so simple. Every morning you have 86.400 dollars and you only have to spend them. And if you don't you'll never get any of your non-spent money back. Consider it a game. A game which can be over any moment. What would you do?"
"Right, 86.400 dollars every day," Joe scratched his forehead, thinking. "Okay, I'd.... I can't save it for later?"
"No, you can't."
"Bad, I'd save some cash for college and other stuff I may need in the future. But since I can't... Alright, I'd buy everyone presents! Nice presents, things other people always wanted to have, but could never afford them. Then...then I'd buy something for myself, like...like a new car and a cool cell-phone and lots of other things. I'd travel around the world, see knew places, meet new people, learn something new... And I'd also do some charity, transfer some sums to organizations that help homeless people and animals, orphanages, to firms that sponsor medicine research and even protection of environment. What else?...." Joe was silent for some moments, lost in musing, then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what else. Now, what does it mean? Because there's no such bank."
"There is and that's the most interesting thing," Chet said with a grin. "There's such a bank for everyone in the world. When we wake up it gives all of us 86.400 seconds of life for one day and when we fall asleep the stock of seconds is exhausted, what we don't spent during the day - it's lost forever. And every morning such magic starts again and again, we're given 86.400 seconds to live. And we play by the rules without even noticing it, there's no way we can cheat – we can't share our time with anyone else, no matter how much we'd want it, it's only our seconds to live; and 'the bank' can close your account any second and you won't know it – because no one can know in advance and warn you when your life is going to end.
"The moral it simple – live your life to the fullest now. Spend every second of your life on all those things you named – gladden other people with gifts which can be not only material, just tell them that you care and it'll be the best gift; use your time to improve yourself; help everyone you can – and that's all while you can. Everyone would find millions of ways to spend of 86.400 dollars within one day without losing a cent, but few think of the ways how to spend 86.400 second of their life wisely, without letting go of a single moment .... That's about it," Chet finished somewhat bashfully, the top of his ears reddening.
A little dumbfounded by what he'd heard, Joe studied his friend's face for some time, "Chet... Have-have you been studying philosophy lately or what?" he asked. It was the lamest thing he could say, he knew, but at the moment there were too many thoughts about what Chet had said to pass a smart thought-out comment. "I mean, first you tell me all those things back then in the basement, now this – I...I've just never known this 'philosophical' side of you."
"Erm.... Consider me an all-round kind of person," Chet said, blushing even more. "Well, no, I haven't been studying philosophy, I just read it in one book half a year ago or so. I loved the idea so much that it literally became my personal business-plan for life. The book's called "If that were true" by Marc Levi, if you're interested. A really good book."
"Definitely looks like it.... Mind if I borrow it from you once you're out of here?"
"Liked the idea?" Chet beamed.
"It's...I can't explain it. I've just never heard anything like this before and it's... Hard to explain, but yes, I liked the idea," Joe replied. "I'll definitely borrow it from you, if you don't mind, because...." A knock on the door interrupted him and he turned to look at the visitor. That was a doctor with his usual round who wanted to examine Chet. "Oh, how out of turn..."
"Yeah, he's always coming in the middle of a very interesting conversation," Chet told him quietly so that the doctor couldn't hear him.
"I guess all doctors do that. Well, I think I'll have to leave now, hopefully we can continue our conversation later," Joe said, rising from his seat. "I can come tomorrow if you like."
"Sure. You're always a welcome visitor."
"It's nice to hear. Thanks. And thanks for food for thinking."
"My pleasure," Chet smiled at him. "Thanks for coming!"
Joe was at the door when he stopped and turned around, "Chet? You know what? I think you're a great friend."
Chet grinned in reply. "So you are. Have a nice day!"
Still smiling, Joe exited the room and walked towards the elevators, unable to stop thinking about what Chet had said. '86.400 seconds, a lottery each and every one wins every day....' He suddenly stopped, frowning. How much time had he lost in vain? The time that could have been spent wisely? The time that he wasted, doing nothing or doing small, unimportant things when so much could have been done, should have been said?....
But then his face brightened. There still were billions – trillions! – of seconds to live. A huge lot of 'prize-money' that he only had to spend shrewdly. And he only had to do delay the fulfillment of the second condition. 'So easy, so trivial yet so inspiring!...'
With a light feeling in his heart, he continued walking. As he was passing a room he accidentally glanced through the open door and saw a teen of 13 or so years old. He was sitting in his bed and all his attention was riveted to the black-covered book, the red letters of the title literally screamed from the cover "The Bermuda triangle fights back!". The boy was so absorbed in reading that he even opened his mouth, his eyes were full of amazement as he was learning such a stunning truth, apparently hidden from the world public by some evil forces, about the infamous place.
Joe couldn't help but grin, but just then he reminded himself that to stare through ajar doors was not polite, so he took one last glance at the teen and walked further. However he couldn't resist glancing into another room while a smiling woman was holding the door open. Inside was a man in his mid 30s who was byeing with a boy, who looked a lot like him, only much younger, – his son, obviously, and-
"Whoops," Joe had still been walking while looking at the pair and smiling at the touching scene, he hadn't noticed two people coming his way and he'd bumped into them. "Sorry."
"It's alright, young man, never mind," the elderly man gave him a smile and went further, hand in hand with a grey-haired woman.
Joe watched them go until they disappeared in a room at the farthest end of the corridor, a funny thought creeping into his mind. He shook his head to get rid of it. 'You're imagining the unimaginable!' his inner voice told him. But those three people, three men of different ages – the boy, the man, the old man - 'Looking for sings from above that you'll live long and happily, are we? A girlish and silly thing to do!' He shook his head again, "Silly you, indeed," he muttered to himself and went to find his brother.
Frank looked up from the magazine he was reading when Joe came into view, "Already back? You're fast," he said, glancing at his watch. "Don't tell me Chet did – how did you say it back then? – 'dash away from you' when you came in. He didn't shoo you away, did he?"
"You're being nasty, you know?" Joe replied. "No, he didn't, if you want to know, it's just we were interrupted and I had to leave. Now come on, I still want to go home. That shepherd's pie is not so scrumptious when it's cold."
Frank put the magazine aside and rose to his feet, "It's alright between the two of you?" he asked, walking to the elevators with his brother and pushing the 'down' button.
"Definitely," Joe nodded. "Better than ever."
"Why am I not surprised?" Frank said, watching the metallic doors open in front of him. "And what were you talking about?"
"Some things, and there was one that had me thinking," Joe followed his brother into the elevator and pressed '0'. When the doors slid close, he turned to his head to look at him, "Frank? What would you do if you won one lottery with a huge prize that you could get on two conditions?..."
THE END. ----------------------- [1] Original 'Nokia. Connecting people.' ™