My hands are trembling on my thighs. I feel my heart beating all the way into my ears.
"Do you know when it starts?" I ask the three people sitting with me at the table. They all shake their bowed heads.
I dry my sweaty hands on my trousers. "I'm sure he has a lot of work to do. Or he wants to keep the tension high." I tell more to myself than to the others at the table.
There is a deck of cards on the table. I am fascinated by how perfectly the cards lie on top of each other. Card for card. My right-hand tickles with the urge to pull a card out of the deck and place it crookedly on top. Maybe because that's how I feel. Like the only crooked card in a perfect deck.
The fifth guest continues to be a long time coming. I have only heard stories about him. At the thought of meeting him, my throat tightens, and yet there is a small spark of curiosity in my chest that is excited to see him.
The door of the Orange Wattworld Saloon, where my teammates and I are sitting, is abruptly pushed open. A black, long figure with two Colts at his hips enters the saloon slowly. He is almost levitating. As he continues to hover in our direction, I focus wide on the guns. Three bullets must be in them. Which in a few hours will have left the barrel of the Colts and sunk into three of our bodies.
The fifth guest is now standing in front of us, behind the chair on which he will sit. I examine him. His body has no clear boundaries. It seems as if he consists only of smoke. The more I try to understand him, the more he escapes me.
An ice-cold shiver runs down my spine. I had so much time to think about this moment, but now that it has begun, I feel like an actor who has forgotten his lines and no longer knows what is about to come.
The fifth guest hovers behind the chair for another moment and then slides onto it through the backrest. He reaches for the stack of cards with his hands, which I can't tell how many fingers they have. The cards blur in the smoke of his hands, and he shuffles them in a way I can't understand. And then, without me even being able to comprehend it, the game begins.
One card, two, three, four... They spread across the table evenly between the four of us players. The fifth guest does not give himself any cards, but surrounds the remaining cards with his unreal hands. I turn over my cards and can't describe the feeling during this. Fear, expectation, hope, sadness. It is a blurry mixture of everything I have ever felt.
"Heart ten." The voice of the fifth guest hums over us like the deep gong of a church bell. I look at my cards, queen of hearts. I lay the card and pass the turn to my neighbor. I can't explain the game, but the rules are burned into my memory like knowledge about my own person.
The rounds pass as if there is no time. Until it is the turn of the player opposite me. His eyes search his cards with a stern look. I see his hands begin to tremble, and I feel him stepping up to say the inevitable. "I have to pass." The desperate words leave his mouth at the same time as a tear. The fifth guest rises, grabs his hip and pulls out one of the two Colts. "Thanks for your game!" With these words, he pulls the trigger of the pistol. For eternal seconds, the bullet flies through the air until it hits the middle of our old teammate's chest and, contrary to my expectations, turns him to dust.
As if frozen solid, I stare at the empty seat across from me. I have to win, I say to myself, and take the new cards that the fifth guest has played to me. Ace of hearts. I can win. Again, the rounds go around. And again the moment comes when, this time, the player next to me has to say: "I have to pass". Again the fifth guest draws his colt, says, "Thank you for your game" and again the bullet hits the man's chest and turns him to dust. Now it's down to the last two players.
I feel the courage rising in me. The ace of hearts is still on my hand. The fifth guest gives us more cards, which we both take. "Jack of Diamonds!" "Spades Eight!" "King of hearts!" We toss the cards back and forth until the other player lays the Ace of Diamonds. I flinch for a moment and without thinking I lay my Ace of Hearts. A terrifying smile crosses my opponent's face. His hand reaches into his deck and pulls out two cards. Double Ace.
Out of nowhere, the ice-cold realization hits me. I have to pass. For the first time since the beginning of the game, I look the fifth guest in the eyes. They're dark caves that lead to nowhere. I take one last breath, stand up and say, "I have to pass." The fifth guest rises from his chair, this time grabbing the other Colt and pulling it with the last bullet in its barrel. The barrel of the gun is aimed at me. One last time, I look at the fifth guest, and it falls like scales from my eyes. He's the death. I played the game with death, and I lost. "Thanks for your life." I hear the trigger on the gun being pulled and...
