Dreams · fiction
The seventh time: how many tries before giving up
A story in seven movements about a man who tried six times, lost six times and, on the seventh, understood what the others had left in his hands.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
A vision — a short story.
One. He was nineteen and had a juice stand outside the school. It rained the whole month. No one drinks juice in the rain. He closed the stand and kept the blender under his bed. He learned that the sky is a partner too.
Two. At twenty-four, he opened a small print shop with a friend. The friend vanished one Friday with the cash and the new machine. He was left with the rent and a pile of business cards bearing the name of a company that no longer existed. He learned that trust is given, but also verified.
Three. At twenty-eight, he came up with a way to deliver lunch boxes to offices, organized by phone message, when no one was doing that yet. People said it was nonsense, that no one would order food by phone. He believed them. He gave up. Five years later, the whole country ordered food that way. He learned that arriving too early also means arriving alone.
Four. At thirty-two, he became a partner in a furniture store. It was going well. Then the economy fell, and with it the store, and with it the marriage. He slept three months on his sister's couch. He learned what weighs more: the debt or his daughter's look when he came to visit on Sundays.
Five. At thirty-seven, he tried again, small: phone repair in a tiny stall in a shopping arcade. It was getting by. A flood took everything in one night. He stood at the arcade entrance watching the brown water run through the corridors, carrying screens, chargers, the plastic chair. He didn't cry. He had no tears left. He learned that nothing is truly his, only what he knows.
Six. At forty-one, he put together what he knew, the print shop, the lunch boxes, the furniture, the phones, and set up a renovation business for elderly people: bathroom grab bars, ramps, higher outlets. It was going well. Until a big client didn't pay and another sued. He closed. That night, sitting in his parked car on a dark street, he seriously thought about giving up trying. He thought about worse things too. He called a helpline number he had seen on a poster. A calm voice listened for forty minutes. It solved nothing. But he slept.
And then, one sleepless early morning, the vision came.
He saw the six men he had been. They were sitting around a table, in a white room with no window. The nineteen-year-old in a rain-soaked T-shirt. The twenty-four-year-old with the useless business cards. The twenty-eight-year-old with the phone in his hand. The thirty-two-year-old with a lost look. The thirty-seven-year-old with mud on his trousers. The forty-one-year-old with red eyes. They all looked at him, the seventh, who had just walked in.
None said "give up". None said "keep going". Each just put something on the table. One put down the sky. Another, distrust. Another, the future. Another, his daughter. Another, empty hands. And the last put down the calm voice on the phone.
He looked at the full table and understood. The six hadn't failed. They had been working for him.
Seven. At forty-four, he opened a trade school for men who, like him, had lost everything after forty. He taught them to repair, renovate, start over. It isn't a story of fortune. It's a story of a full room. His daughter, now twenty, handles the enrollments.
When someone asks how many times he tried, he says he doesn't know for sure. He only knows the seventh had all the others inside it.
Bairo says no one knows how many times he tried, thought about it and nearly gave up, and that it was on the seventh attempt that it worked. Read: The seventh attempt.
The way forward
Every attempt that didn't work leaves something in your hand; before the next one, put it all on the table and look. Trying again isn't repeating, it's adding up. And, if the night gets too dark, call: in Brazil, CVV answers at 188, free, at any hour; elsewhere, reach out to your local crisis line.