Audio Section, Coelho's "The Winner Stands Alone"

This is a section of an audio book of Paulo Coelho's "The Winner Stands Alone". Coelho is known for his books which mix between fiction and self-help in a dramatic sequence of events. This novel is a good read and consequently will be amusing to hear. It's when the author offers you amusement and thoughtfulnes at the same time.

Pages used: 34,35

"People are never satisfied. If they have a little, they want more. If they have a lot, they want still more. Once they have more, they wish they could be happy with little, but are incapable of making the slightest effort in that direction.

Is it just that they don’t understand how simple happiness is? What can she want, that girl in the jeans and white T-shirt who just came running past? What could be so urgent that it stopped her taking time to contemplate the lovely sunny day, the blue sea, the babies in their strollers, the palms fringing the beach?

“Don’t run, child! You’ll never escape the two most important presences in the life of any human being: God and death. God accompanies your every step and will be annoyed because he can see that you’re not paying attention to the miracle of life. Or indeed death. You just ran past a corpse and didn’t even notice.”

Igor has walked past the scene of the crime several times now. At one point, he realized that his comings and goings might arouse suspicion and so decided to remain a prudent two hundred yards from the scene, leaning on the balustrade that looked out over the beach.

He’s wearing dark glasses, but there’s nothing suspicious about that, not only because it’s a sunny day, but because in a celebrity town like Cannes, dark glasses are synonymous with status.

He’s surprised to see that it’s almost midday, and yet no one has realized that there’s a person lying dead on the main street of a city which, at this time of year, is the focus of the world’s attention.

A couple are approaching the bench now, visibly irritated. They start shouting at the sleeping beauty; they’re the girl’s parents, angry because she isn’t working. The man shakes her almost violently. Then the woman bends over, obscuring Igor’s field of vision.

Igor knows what will happen next.

The mother screams. The father takes his mobile phone from his pocket and moves away, clearly agitated. The mother is shaking her daughter’s unresponsive body. Passersby stop, and now he can remove his dark glasses and join them as one more curious onlooker.

The mother is crying, clinging to her daughter. A young man gently pushes her away and attempts mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but soon gives up; Olivia’s face already has a slight purple tinge to it.

“Someone call an ambulance!”

Several people dial the same number, all of them feeling useful, important, caring. He can already hear the sound of the siren in the distance. The mother’s screams are growing louder. A young woman tries to put a comforting arm around her, but the mother pushes her away. Someone attempts to sit the body up, and someone else tells them to lay her down again because it’s too late to do anything.

“It’s probably a drug overdose,” the person next to him says.

“Young people today are a lost cause.”