Late in the evening, the day before his big swimming competition, Max was doing his pushups as his cell phone rang. He jumped up and answered it, completely out of breath. It was his girlfriend, Sarah, wishing him luck. “Are you really working out at his hour, instead of going to bed?” she asked. “Watch out, you’ll exhaust yourself.”
“Are you lecturing me instead of going to bed yourself?” asked Max gently, or as gently as his tired body and brain would allow him. He thanked her, wished her good night and disconnected.
Sure, he had already spent that day training, and it was unwise to continue exercising. Still, this physical activity prevented him from thinking too much, and he really needed that. As soon as he stopped moving, the fear came back. For a professional athlete like him, this particular fear was the most dangerous: it was the fear of losing. No, actually there was one fear even worse than that: the fear of losing again. The current sports season was the hardest that he had ever experienced : he had barely reached the quarter-finals. He was on the point of getting disqualified. He needed all the luck he could get.
Max got up, opened his night stand (= a little piece of furniture with drawers near a bed) and took out a brightly-colored sea shell. It was his lucky charm. Even under torture, Max would never admit to owning a lucky charm, or even to believing that they existed. Only babies could believe that! Still, this little sea shell was special to him, and there was nothing that he could do about it. His grandfather, who had travelled around the world, had given it to him many years before to reward him for his effort. It happened when Max was about ten years old. He was on a summer vacation, practising swimming in the sea with his grandfather, and he was able to stay under water and hold his breath for almost two minutes. His grandfather was impressed and said that he had definitely earned this rare sea shell from a real Australian coral reef by being so confident in the water.
In fact, Max’ performance had nothing to do with confidence: he was just hiding in the water from another boy who was passing by on the shore at that moment. The boy had talked to Max the day before and had made fun of him for being short. Max didn’t want to talk to him, so he preferred to disappear under water, and when he came back to the surface, the boy was already looking another way. Still, Max accepted his grandpa’s praise because nobody ever told him that he was good at anything. That was the day that he decided to become a professional swimmer.
Twenty years later, Chris still kept the shell with him at all times. So, to reassure himself the night before his big competion, he put the shell on the edge of his bed, lay down next to it and tried to relax his body. He quickly fell asleep.
Do you think that Chris is going to win the competition? You will find out in the next post.
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