Reincarnated As A Wonderkid-Chapter 578: My Life in Three Parts
Alex sat at a large mahogany desk. He was wearing reading glasses (mostly for effect) and a cardigan.
He was writing.
The title page read: THE CALCULATED GAME: My Life in Three Parts.
"Chapter One," Alex muttered. "The Rain."
He wrote about the mud. The cold. The tackle that ended Danein Blake.
Then he paused.
"Should I mention the floating blue screen?" he wondered. "People might think I am crazy. Or a superhero."
"Superhero!" a voice shouted from the doorway.
Mark walked in. He was wearing a beret and holding a pipe (it was unlit and made of chocolate).
"I AM THE EDITOR!" Mark announced. "I AM HERE TO FIX YOUR GRAMMAR AND ADD EXPLOSIONS!"
"Mark, this is an autobiography, not an action movie," Alex sighed.
"Autobiographies are boring!" Mark argued, sitting on the edge of the desk. "You need spice! Add a dragon! Or a car chase! Did you write about the time I outran a bus?"
"You didn't outran a bus, Mark. You ran alongside it while it was stuck in traffic."
"Details!" Mark waved his chocolate pipe. "It looked fast! That is what matters!"
Rico walked in. He was holding a guitar.
"I am writing the soundtrack for the audiobook," Rico said. "It needs rhythm. Samba beats for the happy parts. Sad violin for the injuries."
"Do you play the violin?" Alex asked.
"No," Rico admitted. "But I can make sad noises with my mouth. Wooooo..."
Milo burst into the room. He was wearing a suit made of book jackets.
"THE PUBLISHER!" Milo screamed. "ALEX! WE HAVE A BESTSELLER! I PRE-SOLD A MILLION COPIES! I TOLD THEM IT CONTAINS THE SECRET TO ETERNAL YOUTH! (It doesn't, but it has good diet tips!)."
"Milo, that is false advertising," Alex said.
"IT IS CREATIVE MARKETING!" Milo yelled. "I AM ALSO SELLING BOOKMARKS! THEY ARE MADE OF YOUR OLD SOCKS! AUTHENTIC FABRIC!"
"My socks again?" Alex laughed. "Do I have any socks left?"
"NO!" Milo said cheerfully. "YOU ARE BAREFOOT NOW!"
Alex looked at his friends. They were older, greyer, but still the same chaotic energy.
"Okay," Alex said. "Let's write this together."
They spent the afternoon reminiscing.
"Put in the part about the pizza box hat!" Mark insisted.
"Put in the 'Liquid Diamond'!" Rico said.
"Put in the time I sold rain to an Englishman!" Milo added.
Alex wrote it all down. The laughter. The tears. The ridiculousness.
He wrote about the pressure of being a Wonderkid. The fear of being a fraud. The joy of finding a family.
He wrote about Maya and her statistics. About Leo and his first goal.
He wrote about the game.
Not just the tactics. But the soul of it.
Football isn't about the score, he wrote. It's about the moment the ball leaves your foot. The split second of silence before the crowd roars. It's about the friends you make in the mud and the memories you keep in the gold.
"That is deep," Mark said, reading over his shoulder. "Like a deep dish pizza."
"It is poetic," Rico strummed his guitar.
"IT IS PROFITABLE!" Milo cheered.
The book was finished.
They sent it to the publisher (a real one, not Milo).
It became an instant bestseller.
THE CALCULATED GAME was in every shop window.
Alex went on a book tour.
Mark came with him as his "Security/Hype Man".
"MAKE WAY FOR THE AUTHOR!" Mark would shout, pushing through crowds of ten-year-olds. "HE HAS A PEN AND HE KNOWS HOW TO USE IT!"
One day, at a signing in London, a young boy walked up to the table. He was wearing an Arsenal shirt with FINCH 8 on the back.
He looked nervous.
"Mr. Finch?" the boy asked.
"Call me Alex," Alex smiled.
"I read your book," the boy said. "I liked the part about the second chance. Is it true? Did you really live before?"
Alex looked at the boy. He saw the same hunger in his eyes that he had seen in the mirror all those years ago.
"What do you think?" Alex asked.
The boy thought about it.
"I think," the boy said. "That maybe we all get second chances. Every game is a new life."
Alex felt a shiver.
"That," Alex said, signing the book. "Is exactly right. You are smart."
"I want to be a Professor too," the boy beamed.
"Then study hard," Alex said. "And practice your passing."
"And eat pizza!" Mark shouted from the side. "Pizza is brain food!"
The boy laughed. He took the book and ran back to his mum.
Alex watched him go.
He felt a sense of completion.
The story was told. The lessons were passed on.
He stood up.
"Ready to go home?" Mark asked.
"Ready," Alex said.
They walked out of the bookstore.
It was raining in London. A soft, gentle rain.
Alex didn't mind.
He pulled up his collar.
He walked down the street with his best friend, arguing about whether a ghost could play goalkeeper (Mark insisted they could because the ball would go through them, which made them terrible, but Alex argued they could scare the strikers).
The library was a mess of crumpled paper and empty coffee cups.
Alex sat at his desk, staring at a blank page.
His first book, The Calculated Game, had been a bestseller. People loved the story of the Wonderkid who saw football as a puzzle.
Now, his publisher wanted a sequel.
The Professor's Playbook: Advanced Tactics for Life.
"Boring," Alex muttered, scrunching up another piece of paper. "Too serious."
He wanted to write something fun. Something crazy. Something Mark would read without falling asleep.
"Write about the time we played football on the moon!" Mark shouted from the sofa. He was wearing a space helmet made of a bucket and reading a comic book.
"We didn't go to the moon, Mark," Alex sighed.
"Yet!" Mark corrected. "Write it as a prophecy! 'Alex Finch: Galactic Striker'!"
Rico was tuning his guitar in the corner.
"Write about the rhythm," Rico suggested. "How football is a dance. Call it 'Samba and Statistics'."
Milo burst into the room. He was wearing a suit made of book covers.
"THE SEQUEL!" Milo screamed. "ALEX! I HAVE THE IDEA! WE WRITE A FANTASY NOVEL! 'THE WIZARD OF WEMBLEY'! YOU HAVE A MAGIC WAND (your foot)! AND YOU FIGHT DRAGONS (defenders)! I ALREADY SOLD THE MOVIE RIGHTS TO DISNEY!"
"Milo, I am a footballer, not a wizard," Alex said.
"WHY NOT BOTH?" Milo yelled. "HARRY POTTER PLAYED QUIDDITCH! YOU PLAY FOOTBALL! IT IS THE SAME THING BUT WITH LESS BROOMS!"
Alex looked at his friends. They were ridiculous. They were inspiring.
"Fantasy," Alex whispered.
He picked up his pen.
Chapter One: The League of Legends.
He started to write. Not about his real life. But about a game. A game where anything was possible.
The Fantasy Tournament.
Alex organized it. It was a charity event. "The Finch Cup".
But it wasn't normal football.
It was... Experimental Football.
The pitch was circular. There were three goals. Three teams played at once.
Team A: The Speedsters (Captained by Mark). Team B: The Technicians (Captained by Rico). Team C: The Legends (Captained by Alex).
The Legends team included retired stars. Fabregas. Henry. Zidane. And... Danein Blake (represented by a young actor wearing a vintage Brentford kit).
The stadium was the local park, transformed into a carnival.
Thousands of people came. Not just to watch football, but to see the chaos.
"WELCOME TO THE THUNDERDOME!" Mark screamed into a microphone. He was wearing a cape and wrestling boots. "THREE TEAMS ENTER! ONE TEAM EATS PIZZA!"
The whistle blew.
It was madness.
The Speedsters ran everywhere. They didn't pass. They just sprinted in circles.
The Technicians did tricks. They juggled the ball. They did backheels. They refused to run.
The Legends... well, they just stood there and passed the ball perfectly.
In the tenth minute, Mark got the ball.
He ran towards Goal A. But then he saw Goal B was empty. He turned. He ran towards Goal B. Then he saw Goal C.
"TOO MANY CHOICES!" Mark yelled, spinning in circles. "I AM CONFUSED!" 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
He fell over. The crowd laughed.
Zidane picked up the ball. He chipped it into Goal A.
"Goal for Legends!" the referee shouted.
"Which Legends?" Mark asked from the ground. "The old ones or the really old ones?"
"All of us," Zidane smiled.
Milo was the commentator. He was sitting in a tree with a megaphone.
"AND ZIDANE SCORES! THE CROWD GOES WILD! I AM SELLING REPLAYS! I DREW THEM ON A NAPKIN! FIVE POUNDS A SKETCH!"
The game continued.
Rico's team started doing a conga line while dribbling.
"You cannot tackle a conga line!" Rico shouted. "It is against the laws of rhythm!"
Henry joined the conga line. "I like this tactic," he laughed.
Alex watched from the center.
It was silly. It was stupid.
But it was joy. Pure, unfiltered joy.
He saw kids in the crowd laughing. He saw old men smiling. He saw families having a picnic on the sidelines.
"This," Alex thought. "This is the sequel."
He ran to the ball.
He didn't shoot. He didn't pass.
He juggled it.
Left foot. Right foot. Knee. Shoulder.
He balanced the ball on his head.
He ran towards Mark.
"Race you!" Alex shouted.
Mark jumped up. "YOU ARE ON!"
They raced towards Goal C.
Alex dropped the ball. He volleyed it.
It hit the crossbar.
CLANG.
It bounced back.
Mark tried to head it. He missed.
The ball hit his bum.
It rolled into the goal.
"I SCORED WITH MY BUTT!" Mark screamed, running a victory lap. "THE GOLDEN BUTT!"
The game ended 10-10-10. A three-way draw.
Everyone won.
The After Party.
It was held in a giant tent. There was pizza (square, round, and triangular). There was music.
Alex sat at a table with his notebook.
He was writing the final chapter of his new book.
And so, the three teams realized that the real victory was not the score, but the chaos they created along the way.
Mark leaned over his shoulder.
"Is there a dragon in the book?" Mark asked.
"No dragons," Alex said.
"A pizza monster?"
"Maybe in the sequel," Alex smiled.
A young girl walked up to the table. She was holding a copy of Alex's first book.
"Mr. Finch?" she asked shyly. "Can you sign this?"
"Of course," Alex said.
"I want to be a writer," she said. "And a footballer."
"You can be both," Alex said. "I am."
He signed the book: To the future author of the game. - Alex.
The girl beamed.
"Thank you!"
She ran off.
Alex looked at his friends.
They were getting older. Mark had a few grey hairs (he claimed they were "silver speed stripes"). Rico's knees creaked when he danced.
But their spirits were young.
"Hey Alex," Mark said.
"Yeah?"
"Next year... can we play on ice?"
"Ice football?" Alex asked.
"Yes! With skates! And pucks! But still football!"
"That sounds dangerous," Alex said.
"Danger is my middle name!" Mark declared. "Actually, my middle name is Bartholomew, but Danger sounds cooler."
Alex laughed.
He closed his notebook.
The book was done. The tournament was a success.
But the story of Alex Finch... that was never-ending.
He stood up.
"Who wants ice cream?" Alex asked.
"ME!" Mark, Rico, and Milo shouted in unison.
