4.

Thursday. Day 1 of 11. Finished work at 5. Home for an early dinner, down to Platt Fields to watch as much footy as possible. Bagged 70 XP, bringing my total to 110. There were more games going on but I was desperately thirsty and there was a live match on TV. I wanted to watch it to check if watching from my sofa gave me XP - that would allow me to grind, big time.

Turns out, watching on a screen didn't give me any XP and I didn't see any attributes for the players. Just to check, I found some old matches on YouTube and they also had zero effect. I would have to physically turn up if I wanted to 'progress' - whatever that meant in this context.

Talking of context, I did do a cheeky incognito search for phrases like 'augmented reality but in my head' and 'I’m seeing things' and 'are Scottish curses real'. Nothing. I searched for CA PA and got a bunch of pages about Corrective And Preventive Action. I tried CA PA football and there were links to varsity teams in California. One Reddit thread seemed promising but when I clicked on it, the whole screen was distorted like the code had failed and it gave me a headache. Long story short, I got absolutely nowhere and had to accept terms of service and accept cookies every time I clicked absolutely anything so I gave up.

***

Friday. 2/11. Quick detour after work. Mission: buy a flask. You're supposed to put them in the dishwasher before you use them, but I had no time for luxuries like common sense. I wanted to grind through to 1,000 XP to get Super Scout asap. And grinding meant bringing things with me that would let me stay out longer. Hot tea, cash for an onionless chicken wrap, a couple of apples for afters, and a library book to read while the teams were warming up. Lovely. My investment paid off with 80 XP and I could have had more - there were games going on till it got dark, and even then some continued under floodlights.

***

3/11. I thought Saturday would have been a bumper day with many back-to-back matches to watch, but it wasn't that straightforward. In the morning, I found some casual games in the park, 3 on 4, that kind of thing, but they didn't give me XP. Too small? Not serious enough?

As for the lack of bigger games, perhaps the weather was too good and people were doing barbecues or shopping or just going to the pub. Meanwhile, hardcore football fans were on their way to watch the Saturday fixtures. The Premier League clubs were mostly jetsetting around the world. United were in Thailand or Australia. Spurs were in Korea. A quick search told me that the biggest professional game going on near me was a friendly between Altrincham (5th highest professional league) and Stockport County (4th highest). 20 quid for a ticket, plus a burger and a drink, plus parking. 40 or 50 quid all-in? Plus tons of general hassle. Worth it? Not really. A game is a game, right? I didn't see why I should start breaking the bank when I could get XP for free if I looked hard enough.

I expected to be able to watch at least 2 games tomorrow plus at least one every evening after work. I was on target. So there was no point getting an ulcer about it and ending up in the hospital.

So I decided it was as good a time as any to go... to the hospital.

Plot twist!

Actually, no. It's more of a care home. My mum's in one. She isn't well, and she's not going to get any better.

I got in the car and drove, but weirdly, I drove the long way, the way that took me past Hough End playing fields with its countless football pitches. There were no games going on. Ah, well. But wait! To the side, tucked in behind some trees is a little facility used by the police for god knows what. Probably some kind of leisure centre. Diversity training that they all take VERY seriously, I’m sure. It doesn't matter and you don't care, but guess what they've got? A football pitch. And there was a little game on!

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I parked and jogged in. No-one stopped me. I'm not the skin colour that animates the police. The game was 8-a-side, and, moronically, they were playing the full length of the pitch. The game was garbage. There was too much space. The players couldn't pass the ball so it constantly went out for a throw-in or goal-kick. The worst players tried to do the most difficult things, while the best players played neat, simple passes and their reward was seeing less of the ball than their shit teammates. Keeping my attention focused on this travesty of an excuse for sport was hard. Really hard. I earned those XP. I was up to 250 - a quarter of the way there!

A few hours after I set off, I arrived at the care home and found they'd moved all the patients around again. I stopped a nurse to complain about it. Surely it's important for these patients to build a routine? To be in familiar places? She was sympathetic but said, for once, the home was blameless. My mother had insisted on moving. That was very strange. Very unlike her. Almost impossibly out of character. Her catchphrase was 'don't make a fuss'.

I found her and settled in for a session of what I call 'being there'. We’d never had long chats even when she was healthy, and these days her moments of lucidity don't coincide with my visits. The doctors encourage me to keep trying, though, and the nurses assure me she benefits from me being there.

"Max," she said, shocking me by recognising me straight away. She was in her favourite chair watching telly. She gave me a level stare. "You must see Anna. Go and see Anna immediately."

"Anna? Who's that? Why are you in this room? The last one had a better view."

"Anna is next door. She's my friend and I want to be next to her."

I was torn. Mum was awake and herself and it seemed insane to leave when she was like this. It was increasingly rare. On the other hand, me staying would merely agitate her. I decided to leave the room, but slowly.

Mum was having none of it. "Be off with you. I'm watching Love Island." She was, as well. I got to the door and hesitated for just a moment. "To the left," she barked.

There was nothing for it. I turned left and went to see this Anna person. I knocked, heard a loud, clear 'enter', and swung the door open. Three steps into the room the same voice told me to stop. It came from a medical bed in the centre of the room. Anna was clearly much physically sicker than my mum. Much older, too, though mum was too young to be in a place like this. At first glance Anna was a generic old woman. White hair and that.

"Solly," she said. A mutt raised its head and looked at me. He looked like he'd have preferred to stay in his little dog bed, but he dutifully got up and approached me, giving me a wary sniff before starting to growl. The growl grew into a tiny bark. Solly was trying to limit his volume. Good dog! "Solly doesn't approve of you."

"Then he's an impeccable judge of character."

Anna didn't laugh. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mary's son. Max. I hear you're friends now."

"Thick as thieves. Solly adores her."

I spared a bit more of my mental run-time to look at her. The wrinkles around the nose, the shape of the lips. She had a powerful aura. One of those women with too much energy who are always thundering around the garden or organising fetes, if fetes still exist. "You've got an accent there."

"Polish."

Another one! "Do you know a guy called Nick?"

"All the residents here are women. Perhaps you mean one of the locums?"

"No. Don't worry about it."

"You don't seem concerned about Solly's low opinion of you."

"That's because he is a dog. And hardly a thoroughbred."

"You confuse him with a horse. You should be concerned. Solly is a very spiritual animal. He has seen many things and he sees many things. He is never wrong."

She was speaking in a tone I couldn't quite put my finger on at the time, but in the car later it came to me - medium. Spiritualist. Crystals and oversized bracelets and all that. I just didn't care in the slightest and wanted to get out of there as fast as possible without doing anything unforgivably rude. "If he comes in here with me, he can watch the end of Love Island."

"Oh, that." She scrunched up her nose. By now I'd locked her face into my facial recognition software. The nose, in particular, was quite distinctive. "Your mother has wonderful latent spiritual gifts. She has real talent for the occult. We spend many evenings stargazing, exploring the tarot, discussing the mysteries of the universe." She made an unconscious lip-smacking gesture like you might see on a horse. "But she loves those lowest common denominator shows. The lower the better." She sighed.

I was almost out of the room when I turned back. "By the way," I said. "Mum's looking much better and it seems you're a big reason for that. So thanks. Bye. And bye, Solly."

And that really should have been a meeting so trivial and inane as to never warrant another mention, another microsecond of thought.

But as you'll see, it was a pretty big deal.

And not the way you'd think.