Bob swore up and down at his predicament. He said all manner of nasty names, some reasonable enough, others would mark him a social pariah, and some that would land him in a deep prison hole. Luckily for his sake, no one was around.

He had just been dumped by his girlfriend, Susan, who didn’t take too kindly to his aggressive macho-man attitude of being in first. Bob never liked being second place. Today was the last straw as a friendly night at the bowling alley with a group of work friends turned into a stiff competition. Out came his massive douchebag attitude and as he beat his opponents into metaphorical submission, his girlfriend went from annoyed to angry.

When the night was over, Susan dumped him right in front of everyone else.

Bob walked home in the rain, alone. Susan took the car. It was hours as Bob self-reflected on what went wrong.

Things went from bad to worse when he walked into their apartment. There was a note.

Bob, as things are over, I moved out. The apartment is now in your name only. I’ve taken the liberty to grab all my things and go. I won’t leave your life, though. I will make sure your life is as terrible as you think second place is. I have cursed you to a life of second place. You will never win a competition ever again. Toodles.

Hate,

Susan

Susan had a habit of cursing things. Not cursing as in profanity, but cursing as in witches and occult. For a very long time, Bob thought it was a hobby that she dressed up with a black dress and witch’s hat from time to time. She would mix colorful things in a large kettle she kept in their study room. To him, Susan’s hobby was just a hobby. An eccentric hobby, but just a hobby.

He liked it. Bob thought it was fun role-play from time to time to kidnap her from her hobby and take her to the back of their place. And for the most part, she obliged.

Bob was finding out real quick that she was not pretending and it was not a hobby. She was an actual witch.

No one would believe him anyways, should he try to get help.

“What would they do, but laugh at you?” Bob found the note on the refrigerator not long after he had those thoughts.

She had some level of insight into his inner thoughts and continued to leave notes around the apartment, his work, and his recreations. No one else noticed them.

“They’re only for your eyes, dear.”

Bob tried to get his life back on track. It was a bigger mess than he anticipated. Susan’s curse literally made him second place in everything he tried. He was second place for promotion considerations. Second place in purchasing the car he wanted to buy, which was to say, he couldn’t purchase it. Second place in find a new girlfriend; Every woman he tried to ask out, would inevitably stand him up for a first place Chaddy McChadface person. The months were going by with him constantly being in second place for all the important things in life. It was grating to say the least.

Susan never let up mocking him for being second place.

“You were my first. In everything. You hurt me. Now your life will suffer until your grave.”

The note came in as a paper airplane and hit him right in the face. Susan was particularly angry over that facet. Apparently, he was her first boyfriend, her first partner, and first everything. It stung him too. It stung her much more.

Second place wasn’t just second place for good things. It also meant second place in bad things, ergo, him taking the hit first. In a way, it was an anti-first place. He and a colleague were being considered let go. That meant he was let go and his colleague was kept on board.

“How did your termination go?”

The note was on his front door when he found it.

“Shut it, Susan. I don’t want to talk about it.”

When he got to his bedroom, their former bedroom, he found another note.

“Aww, did I trip a nerve, Babe?”

In a way, she did. That job was his life ambition and since his dumping, his life spiraled downward until he lost his life ambition.

“You know the easy way to complete your punishment.” The note was next to a tied rope.

He really did consider it. At this point, he lost his job. He got stood up by a hundred attempts at getting back into dating. He lost his family to their dog. This second-place curse was starting to affect his non-competitive life, too. Bills were going late, he was starting to drink, and so on.

Susan continued to mock and harass him through the notes.

Deep down, Bob truly loved Susan. She was also his first, and in his eyes, the last partner he ever wanted. Every so often he would catch a glimpse of someone like her. Probably her with a not-so-good occult disguise. He tried to follow the person only to lose them in the crowd or around a corner. He wanted to apologize for what he did.

“Nuh uh. You’ve still got a long way to go before an apology will be heard, let alone accepted.” That note was on the bed when he got back. Variations of this were found there every time he caught a glimpse and tries to make contact. Things were bleak for Bob.

On recommendation of a friend, Bob went to therapy. The therapist pushed him into meditating. Over time, Bob found out that between the meditations and therapist sessions, Susan was unable to overhear his thought in either activity. Bob suspected the therapist was into some form of magic too, as his office had incense burners and talismans. The therapist called himself an Iman, a man of God, and before their sessions, went about setting up his personal ritual. Bob figured if all this was true, he was taking clients’ privacy very seriously.

The therapist’s mediation recommendation sent him to another man. This one calling himself a Purohita. Bob knew nothing of the word’s meaning but felt more at ease around both of them. He got Bob to relax his breathing and mediate. The Purohita got Bob into yoga exercises. He recommended Bob to one final man.

The last man was a Catholic priest and Bob was introduced to confession.

Between the three holy men, Bob regained his strength. This infuriated Susan, who left more angry and less mocking letters across his apartment. She was mad that some aspects of Bob’s new life were unavailable to her to listen in on.

Things still weren’t all that good for Bob. He was working low end jobs and barely making ends’ meet. He had stopped trying to find someone new to date and was saddened every time he saw a pretty face during his errands. Susan took particular glee at this facet. Bob’s hobbies changed from sports to going to the local mosque, temple, or church to meditate or pray.

At least Bob wasn’t suicidal anymore.

“Why struggle when you could take the easy way out? You’ll reach paradise, they say.” Susan was not happy Bob didn’t off himself.

The anniversary of his dumping and that fateful day was coming up. He was starting to dread it as it approached, all to Susan’s glee. She reminded him daily that he would always be second place on the week to the date.

But on that fateful day, a year later, someone up High threw Bob a bone. Someone didn’t want Bob to give in to sweet release and eternal damnation.

The Olympics were coming to Bob’s town.

The therapist did not respect Bob’s privacy in one regard, though at this point, Bob was okay in having the man share his private sessions with the Purohita and the Priest. By now, Bob had thoroughly talked to the therapist about the curse.

“This curse of yours. It’s only for second place, right?”

“Yes. Susan said I would always be second place.”

“Why can’t you be second place in more than one thing?”

“Can I?”

“That is up to you to decide.”

With the Purohita, he was more into preventing the curse from harming Bob any more than it had already done damage to Bob’s life.

“Remember, the curse can only hurt you if you let it. Everything is not a competition. Sometimes, you just have to let things come to you rather than you try to compete for them.”

The Priest was for turning Bob’s life around.

“Being second place is not bad, if you are second place in more than one area.”

A lightbulb went off in Bob’s head.

Bob had a theory that the curse that Susan had given him with wasn’t as fleshed out as much as she could predict. He theorized that in a moment of emotion and passion, Susan dropped a curse that left a couple of loopholes in its wording.

Bob mediated on the meaning of it and tested his theory.

First, with the Iman, Bob played a series of card games. War, Blackjack, Poker, and even Go Fish. He would always lose, even if the Iman deliberately played horribly with nonsensical moves and choices.

Then, Bob included the Purohita and Priest in on their games. In Poker, Bob became the one with the second-best hand. The four of them tried board games where luck was a bigger factor. Same thing. Then they tried games where skill was the biggest factor. He was second place in Halo despite him throwing his character off the cliff half the game.

The four of them tried strength and endurance competition. Fate always conspired Bob to be second place no matter how hard he threw or how much better his three conspirators were.

Armed with this newfound information, Bob came back home to a poster of the Olympics stuck in his door by a passerby while he was out. Bob realized, what if he went for everything. A silver medal may not be as good as gold, but a silver medal in as many competitions as possible is a whole lot better than a single gold medal.

Of course, his ex-girlfriend Susan overheard those thoughts.

“Even if you trained more than any other competitor, you’ll never win it.”