Description
We met a couple of weeks ago in the park. It was just an evening walk. Suddenly, it started raining, and the only place I could hide from it was a big tree with a cozy bench underneath it. At first glance, the most ordinary middle-aged man was already sitting on the bench. He was immersed in some papers and had been sitting there for a long time. The rain was getting heavier, but the tree covered us reliably. I decided to look closer at my occasional neighbor. I won't describe how he was dressed; everything looked ordinary and usual, but I subconsciously felt some oddities and inconsistencies. For example, his shorts had no pockets. Have you ever seen men's shorts without pockets? The shoes and shirt were not just matched; they were precisely the same color. It was small but made it feel like an overly precise imitation.
As I said, he was holding and reading some papers; it was something like a brochure, but the sheets were connected in a slightly different, unusual way. "Reading" is not the right word either, because there was no text in the "brochure," only some pictures. He noticed my attention, and I looked at his papers; he was not surprised at all, and seeing a question in my eyes, he said that these were records of the game and he was analyzing the games played. When asked about the game name, he said that I had probably never heard of it and the name would not tell me anything. After a short conversation, he kindly showed me the game recordings. I tried to find the game's name on the Internet by its appearance, but I could not find such a game, although there was something slightly similar. This seemed strange to me, as did the fact that the playing field size in his recordings was different. All the fields were square, but the sizes varied. There were tiny fields and larger fields. The piece's arrangement in the corners was also unusual. Nevertheless, the positions had some systematicity, which was only sometimes obvious.
I like strategy games like chess, checkers, or Go (this game seemed strategic to me), so I was interested in the unusual game and asked him to let me take a picture of a couple of game sheets to try and figure it out later. Still, the stranger shoved the whole booklet at me, saying he had more. Then he noticed the rain was over, apologized, saying he was in a big hurry, and quickly left. I was unprepared for his quick leave, and by the time I came to my senses, he was gone. After the parting, I thought a lot about the game, about the odd stranger, and started calling him "alien" for myself. I present him strictly under this "name"; I hope he will excuse me.
Why don't I share notes for free but want to get paid for mint? Free stuff attracts much less attention, and the fee for 1 mint is relatively small. I hope you enjoy owning the recordings of a unique game. If I ever meet him again, we will decide together what to do with the money.
Hopefully, our next meeting will happen someday, and I can learn more about him, the game, and where they are from. If I have any new information, I'll update you on that.
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