Jack was always told to learn to dream.
His mother told him as a child.
Don't hide inside the things you have Jack, imagine all the things you don't have and wish for what might make you feel good.
Jack learned to dream.
Those were his childhood dreams, but they were right there in his little drawer.
When Jack got older, a lot of people told him to follow those dreams.
Jack had dreams, but he realised he'd never done anything to achieve them.
He learned to chase them, one by one, as if they were a class assignment but only that in this case it was his passions that guided his every gesture and not the advice and diktats of his teachers.
It was some time before someone else spent him giving more advice on dreams.
One of his high school classmates often told him that he should cash in on those dreams and not let them be just a hobby.
He had to learn how to make them a business.
Jack was surprised by this constant exhortation. He thought that dreams are beautiful when they are pure and to remain pure they must be their own, they must have no limits and therefore no stakes.
A few years went by before Jack realized that dreams alone cannot be lived on.
Would he have preferred them to remain pure while he made ends meet in a fast food restaurant serving fries or in an office with a sad uniform? In that case he would have preserved the purity of his dreams but he would have lived half his life wondering why.
He listened to the words of his friend and began to work because of his passions.
Better 1000 euros a month doing what I love and not 5000 without time for myself, he thought.
Years went by and his mother was proud of him.
You saw Jack, you learned to dream and now your life is a dream.
Jack smiled and thanked his mother for allowing him to learn to dream.
The truth was, Jack's dreams were few and far between.
Now he worked so hard, he couldn't have time to dream anymore.
Most of the old dreams had faded.
Those few still afloat were his survival anchor, but they had become such an established routine that they didn't seem unlike serving fried chicken at KFC.
New dreams hadn't come along.
But life had arrived, the real one.
Bills to pay, friends to forget, rent on his shoulders, years flown by in the blink of an eye, problematic girlfriends and inexplicable fines that arrived occasionally in the mailbox.
He was tired, Jack.
Tired of dreaming but also tired of surviving.
He had learned to dream, he had chased his dreams, he had committed himself to making them come true, he had lived with the freedom and lightness of a violet that breaks loose in the wind, he had even tried to make a job what he loved.
In spite of all this, he was now depressed, dissatisfied, collapsed under the weight of his desires.
He would have lied to his mother forever, he did not want to give her that displeasure, he did not want to awaken her from her little dream of having a happy and fulfilled son.
But would he lie to himself for much longer?
The question remained unsolved for a long time, and while Jack struggled with himself, years went by.
In the meantime he had thought of abandoning his VAT-registered jobs for something quieter that would leave more free time and fewer thoughts in his head.
He had considered going abroad for a few years to learn languages and experience other cultures.
He had thought about taking over a small pub and transforming it.
He had even plunged into the world of e-commerce for a while but without digging a spider out of the hole.
While Jack was thinking, thinking, thinking about his future, those plans had consumed days, weeks, months, years.
The hands of the clock had moved forward, and while he ran with his mind, life was moving forward.
The difference between running in an open space and running on the treadmill is that in the latter case you are essentially stationary.
The depression had become something much more intense, indefinable.
Now so many of the things it could do years ago could no longer do.
He wasn't old but he wasn't young enough to feel old enough to play soccer without being out of breath.
Time had already expired for many of the things he loved to do and now he didn't know what else to invent.
He gave himself deadlines.
By this date I will have to decide this one, by this date I will have to decide this one.
He wrote them down in a notebook, but every time the deadline came, he would end up self-absorbed and give himself a waiver.
More years went by from one waiver to another.
Now there were many things that Jack could no longer do, and less and less that he wanted to do.
He had no family, no home, no college degree, no bank account to make him feel comfortable.
He was left alone with his dreams.
There were no more decisions to make or plans to make.
It was too late.
For everything.
And then he understood an important lesson.
Dreams are illusions, it's true, but the real illusion is life, is the control we believe we have.
So no more dreaming, no more delusion, no more trying to be in control.
It's Jack.
I'm 55 years old.
I have no wife, no children. I don't have dogs.
I don't have an inheritance, but even if I did, I wouldn't know who to leave it to.
I don't have a piece of paper to testify what I can do.
I've hardly ever travelled.
I've loved a few times.
I've been loved even less.
I have so many plans never realized and too many dreams chased.
Now I'm out of breath and I can't run anymore.
I'm going to stop running, right now.
I'm gonna embrace life for what it is: A trifecta on the lottery.
I got 20,000 on my tab.
I'm gonna play three numbers for the next 20 weeks. Dry third.
1,000 euros at a time trying to win 4,500,000.
If I win, I'll live and dream again.
If I lose, I'll be eclipsed forever.
That was Jack's story.
In his house was found this note written and signed 21 weeks ago.
We don't know where Jack is.
Dead as a doornail somewhere or in Hawaii enjoying his winnings.
Or maybe Jack never existed and this was just a game.
It was just a dream.
