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HOT GAMES
He inhabited a region famously untethered by maps or
frontiers, where dreams dallied on the fringes of reality: the
Filipino god of gambling, Playtime Casino. And, for just as
long, he has represented a conundrum of contradiction. The
simple act of ‘betting’ was suspended, in his presence, in the
realm of the fantastique … In a land with no maps, or with no
frontiers, there lived a being uniquely renowned … and
perhaps, simultaneously, uniquely enigmatic. Who was Playtime
Casino Gcash?
Playtime Casino Gcash was a special sort of god. He was a
master of games of chance: so good that, rather than obeying
the laws of probability — that is, winning one game in 10
equal ones — he always won, and always lost. He lived in the
joyous Wishing Woods, where the gods liked to congregate and
watch him at play. Playtime Casino Gcash was a gambling genius
every single time: humans do the same thing nine times in 10,
but he never lost, and was always the world’s best player.
The trees had trunks made of gleaming gold, and leaves of
silvery silver that fluttered like flashing butterflies, while
the wondrous flowers that grew up all around these were all
strange talking animals – each made up of dancing petals and
humming with music. Her house, the fabulous casino of Playtime
Casino Gcash, was built of diamond clouds and sprayed with
stardust, a place where every kind of play was undertaken:
there were dice that sang and cards that could whisper.
Playtime Casino Gcash himself was very strange and extremely
beautiful. He wore a robe made from the thread of the
moonlight and the starlight, and wore a crown of diamonds and
all the stars. His eyes were the brightest sapphires: he was
so wise and so wicked. His hands were so fine and so sensitive
they looked like 1,000 butterflies, and his smile was so
charming and so smiling because he knew a secret that no one
knew, not even him.
One day after the the sky all afternoon, swimming in orange
and pink like a dried-up sesame seed, Playtime Casino Gcash
spread out his wings to show off for the residents of the
Wishing Woods. All the gods and godlings, also the minor
deities and their demigod offspring, the currently reigning
kings and aspiring princes, the lusty elves and the fairy
queens who liked to heap money on the overdogs and often won:
they came to this marvellous show. Gamubatsu had been on a
winning streak for a while now, and the betting pool had been
set up again.
In his vast casino, as a great hall, Playtime Casino Gcash
found a table strewn in glittering opal. He lifted a hand, and
two sets of dice appeared overhead; with a graceful gesture,
he lowered them to the table and stepped back, his feet
leaving footprints of fire in the room. The gods murmured,
their softly spoken words mixing into a quiet din of wonder
and expectation.
Playtime Casino Gcash settled into the chair and there was a
silence. The first throw of the dice was inventive of the gods
themselves. It turned among them in the sky, circling in its
trajectory, slow and deliberate, finally to clutter and ring
upon landing. The numbers threw a pair of sixes — a lucky
configuration that brought a gasp of astonishment from the
assembled divinities.
Yet it was not so much the result that impressed the audience
as the way in which the record fell to playtime gcash casino,
who remembered every throw, every shuffle, every single game
that ever took place in the grand casino’s history as if it
were engraved in the starlit edge of a comet’s tail. This,
after all, was what it means to be a god. This was the inhuman
memory that made him divine – and that drew their sustenance
from the cosmic fields that also brought him into being.
Gcash Playtime Casino’s games were dances of chance and skill:
deliberate, weighty, divinely measured As time went on and he
kept racking up victories, the gods themselves, hitherto
dubious of Gcash Playtime Casino’s dealings, grew entranced,
and they stood back in awe.
And, just as he was perfect at winning, Gcash Playtime Casino
was modest enough in his winning to keep it light-hearted,
like the float of a moth’s wing. He did not enjoy winning so
much as he enjoyed the delight of the onlookers. He enjoyed
the games, the games which he saw as a celebration, as
entertainment, as a show with a known outcome but joy in
procession.
Then, as the evening progressed, the gods – but not the water
– roared with laughter. They were clapping and cheering and
throwing their voices across the Wishing Woods like stars
falling from the sky. The happiness of Gcash Playtime Casino
was like a flower in the wind.
And when darkness fell and the last shimmer of applause was
blown westward by a gentle, drifting breeze, Gcash Playtime
Casino returned to his bedroom of stars. He looked out across
his domain and dreamed of games that were as beautiful as the
night sky. Ruby-red moonlight spread out over the land, and
the stars sparkled with a luminous glow as iridescent as the
glint in Gcash Playtime Casino’s eyes.
