Day 193 - Trade Story

Trade Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

“Micah? Do you want to make a deal, Micah?”

Micah sat in the booth and thought. It was an either-or situation. He could choose one or the other. It was very simple, but not simple at all. It would change everything, affect everything. Nothing in his life would ever be the same. He had come to make a trade. He knew the stakes were incredibly high and the people here were incredibly powerful. He had been warned. He had been told to stay away, that he wasn’t ready yet, that this was not the sort of place for novices. But it was what he had come to do. And so here he was, being talked into making one enormous mistake.

It was a fairly pedestrian looking diner. There was nothing special about it from the outside. No passerby would think twice about it. And if you entered and didn’t know what it was there for, then you’d never know what was really happening at the other booths.

There were trades going on at every booth. People came here to trade. It could be a trade of any sort. Some people traded average everyday items like pens for combs. Others traded nations, or powers, or futures. That was the scope; the scope was endless. The scope was the participant’s imagination and their means to make something come true. There was a legend of a trader that began by trading seven seconds of his kid sister’s life, seconds that she had willingly donated mind you, and six hours and one thousand trades later walked out owning the ability to drink another person’s hope. What do you really do with that power? Who knows? But it sounded pretty badass. No one really knew if that was true or not, but after spending a few sessions in the diner, the story seemed plausible enough. Kings were made or destroyed. Timelines were altered. Realities crushed. Universes born. Or maybe it was just people talking. To an outside observer it could be pretty hard to tell what was really happening sometimes and what was someone’s hyperboles. Magic and myth are strange that way. Both rely on belief and trust and blind faith. If an outside observer saw it as a game, it was a game. If they saw it as something more, then maybe it could be just that.

It was a game, after all – an addictive game, where the only values were agreed upon in the moment. No one really knew how to estimate the value of what went on. There was no guide or currency or anything like that. It was all barter and negotiations. A Faustian deal with the devil type of trade. Supposedly the idea first started as a system of fair and equitable exchanges of that which wasn’t tangible or sellable. Men of means were supposed to find what they needed and play a part in someone else getting what they needed. The idea was fair. But human nature being what it is, everyone came in wanting to win. And what sort of trade really set things up for there to be two winners? Maybe that was possible if both people really wanted what the other had to offer, but that was far from common or likely. And how often did two people come to trade that actually had something of equal value? They only had what they had and nothing more. It was only of value if it was what someone else wanted. The game was the process of knowing what a person would or would not give up. Come to the game not knowing your own worth, or your own perceived worth, and you were already doomed.

Micah was a novice and he had been warned to stay away, but the temptation was too great. He had plans and desires and wanted a way to make things happen. And so it ended up that Micah made some easy trades only to be talked into some not so easy trades. And finally there were some dangerous trades.

He sat and thought about what was being offered. Either he could have a perfect life, or everyone he knew could. That was the deal. Simple. Concise. That was all there was to it. There were no more details given. He didn’t know what his perfect life would be or what theirs would be. For all he knew they could be one and the same. For all he knew, he could accept and nothing would change at all. It might have been a bluff. He might be trading with someone that had no power whatsoever. Micah thought he was a decent enough poker player, but this process was a different beast entirely.

Micah thought about what he really wanted. He had wanted happiness, but didn’t really know what that meant. He had spent the night accumulating vague concepts of regret like failed attempts to kiss someone and failures to even try. He had no need of that. It did him no good. All he wanted was his own happiness. He couldn’t gain happiness from someone else’s misery. Or at least he didn’t think he could. He really didn’t know what he was giving up. He didn’t know what someone else would do with it. Maybe he was about to make a fool of himself. He wasn’t sure.

He just wished he could know what would happen. He wanted happiness, but no one had it or was willing to trade it. And if he left now all he would have was the misery of strangers. He told himself that either outcome was a good outcome. Either he would be happy or he would get to enjoy everyone else’s happiness. He chose to ignore ideas like envy and regret. He already had someone else’s regret that he didn’t want. What good would come from having his own? He wasn’t sure. He had no idea what he was really asking for or what he was about to receive. But he was there to gamble, so that was what he did. He chose to make the trade. He chose the risk.

“We have a deal.”

Micah shook hands and the die was cast. He could barely breathe. He had no idea what happened next. Maybe all he did was trade one mystery for another. Maybe he had no idea what happiness looked like and so he was unable to tell whether he had it or not. Or maybe it had all been a bluff and he traded away something for nothing. Maybe it was all of those things. His head spun and he felt a little bit sick. He had to get out of there. He knew he had made a mistake going there. He had been warned. He had been told. But he had to learn the hard way.