Our food arrived faster than I thought it would, it was delivered to us by one of the security gaurds after making sure that it was actually ordered by us. I tipped the delivery driver 30 quid as he had delivered it fast for me.
Diana stood up and walked over to a bookcase on the left side of the room. She pulled a book out and the bookcase parted way and a counter appeared. There was several alcholic drinks behind the counter.
I sat behind the counter and placed our food on the counter. I had ordered Ethiopian food as I had eaten it several times. I had ordered us both Injera. It was simple sourdough flatbread that was mounded with spicy meats, vegetables and stew. I loved eating it but I ate it rarely as I did not want to eat way to much and start hating it.
I was introduced to this food by Diana as she had an Ethiopian friend who introduced it to her.
Usually when I ate with Diana she would be the one to order food for us.
Diana grabbed a bottle of red wine. "This bottle is 30 years old, it's older than you are." Diana said as she chuckled.
"Eh, don't really mind." I said.
She took two wine cups from under the counter and poured it in both. She passed one of the cups to me and I thanked her.
Diana's philosophy was to let someone do something in moderation so that later on they wouldn't do it in excess. If I was ever with her she let me only drink two glasses of wine. She believed that if she refused to give it to me now then I would drink it behind her back and become an alcoholic.
I placed the food in it's packet in front of Diana and I placed mine in front of me. I opened the box and smelt it. It smelt astonishing. The food had been placed neatly and carefully in an intricate manner so that it did not collide with one another.
I started eating the food with the plastic fork and knife that came with it. We dined for a while and conversed.
"I heard you played a match yesterday," Diana said as she swirled the wine in her cup.
"That is correct." I replied.
"Who was it? Did you enjoy it or what?"
"I enjoyed it but we lost."
"Tell me all about it."
I explained in detail how the match yesterday went leaving only the part where I tried to snipe the birds out of the sky out.
"That's really to bad, you only played for half the game and you still managed to give an assist, I'll tell you this I can't do that," She said as smiled.
Was that supposed to make me feel better?
She could not even kick a ball without hurting herself so it really wasn't that much of a compliment, but still I appreciated the effort she made.
"I don't think I'll be playing anymore though." I said. I opened up the spice packet and added it to my Injera.
"Why not?"
"I messed up the play, I messed up way to many times, we could have won that match by a landslide but I missed all those chances, my selfishness to pass the ball lead to us losing as well."
"Don't worry about it," Diana said. "Nothing that money can't solve, who is this coach of yours?"
I shook my head as I heard Diana's words.
"No don't do that," I said.
"Why not? I'm not bribing the other team to let you win, I'm just bribing the coach to give you a chance to play." Diana opened a wooden box that contained Cuban cigars. Before she could take one out I put my hand over it and shut it.
"I hate the smoke, please don't smoke in front of me." I said. "I don't want you doing any of that, I play football because I enjoy it and it feels like it's the only thing that does not feel like a dream, I don't want to ruin it by corrupting it."
"I want to play and get better on my own, I want my hard work to be rewarded and when I look back on it I have this sense of accomplishment."
Diana was silent for a moment. She waited for a while before shrugging and drinking the last of her wine.
"If you say so."
"What happened lately? I have not seen you at home?"
"I have company to maintain and unlike your father I have to put in work."
_____
It was early evening around 4 o clock when I cam back home. I parked my motorcycle in the garage and went out to the field behind my house. It was quite large. No it was humongous. The pitch was the size of a normal football field and so was everything else. The penalty box, the lines and the goals. There were stands enough for a few hundred people.
This pitch was my was my safe haven. I did not allow anyone in here except the servants who maintained the equipment.
I needed to work on a lot of stuff to increase my skills. I warmed up by jogging several laps around the pitch before sprinting at full speed.
It took me half an hour to do this. Quickly I brought out equipment from the shed.
I then set cones up in a straight line each other 80 centimetres apart from each other. I then started dribbling the ball taking my time as my dribbling was not that great.
The slower I was the more precise my turns were but that was only natural as that gave me more time to adjust. After 10 minutes I decreased the distance between each cone to 60 centimetres.
It was more harder as I did not have as much space as before. Also the fact that I did not have great talent with balls did not help.
I spent the rest of the day dribbling in between cones decreasing and increasing the cones from time to time. Occasionally I would run with the ball at full sprint and then shoot at the goal.
Despite it being an open goal I missed several times.
I went back to the house feeling extremely exhausted at around nine. I had a shower and was about to get in my bed when I saw a shooting star. I quickly ran out to the balcony and made a wish. "I wish I could improve at football. I wish I could improve at football. I wish I could improve at football."
I did not believe in wishes being fulfilled by a space rock that was going to crash in a desert. The only reason why I did was because it was a force of habit. I then went to sleep.
__
Thoughts
Power stones?