My life got smaller after the accident. Not all at once, but gradually, like a pond slowly freezing over from the edges. A slipped disc, two surgeries, and a prognosis that said "manage the pain, avoid strain." I used to be a carpenter. I built things—tables, bookshelves, whole garden sheds that stood square and true. Now, my biggest accomplishment was walking to the park bench at the end of my street and back without my back seizing up. The days were long. The television chatter grated. I felt like a spectator in my own life, watching the world hustle by from my stationary perch.

My granddaughter, Sophie, is eight. She's my lifeline. She visits after school, full of stories about dinosaurs and soccer and a million apps on her mother's tablet. One afternoon, she was showing me a game where you fling angry birds at towers. I joked that it looked stressful. "It is! But I like this one better, Grandad," she said, swiping to another. "It's a chicken! It has to cross the road." She giggled as a cartoon chicken sprinted and flapped across a highway, narrowly avoiding trucks.

I watched, amused. "Seems a bit daft, love."
"It's on Mummy's grown-up game site," she said, matter-of-factly. "It's called chicken road vavada. She lets me watch sometimes. You bet on the chicken!"

The name meant nothing to me. But the image stuck. That silly chicken, trapped on one side, desperately trying to get to the other. I felt a kinship with it. I was stuck on my side of the street too.

That evening, the silence in my flat felt heavier than usual. I have an old laptop I use for bills and emails. On a whim, a pure impulse to connect with Sophie's world, I typed it in. Chicken Road Vavada. It led me to a site, Vavada. It looked clean, not like the seedy betting shops I remembered from my youth. I poked around, found the game. It was exactly as she'd described. A simple, almost childish animation. You placed a bet, the chicken ran, a multiplier grew. Cash out before it got hit. The stakes were digital, distant. But the objective was profoundly simple: get the chicken across.

I created an account. Mark. It asked for a username. I typed "BenchCarpenter." I deposited twenty pounds—the cost of a cheap takeaway. This wasn't about money. This was about giving the chicken a fighting chance. About having a stake, however tiny, in a successful crossing.

The first time I played, I was terrible. I'd cash out too early, terrified of the loss. The chicken would scurry to 5x, 10x, and I'd be sitting with my meager 1.8x win. I felt foolish. Then I'd get bold, let it ride, and watch a pixelated truck reduce my bet to zero. It was frustrating, but it was a clean, clear frustration. No vague, aching pain. Just a binary outcome: chicken made it, or chicken didn't.

I started to play every afternoon, after my slow walk to the park. It became my ritual. I'd watch the sunset from my bench, then come home, make a tea, and help the chicken. I began to see it not as gambling, but as a puzzle. A test of nerve against pure randomness. I set rules for myself, like I used to set measurements for a cut. "Bet one pound. Cash out at 3x. No exceptions." It was discipline. It was control. Something I thought I'd lost.

One grey Tuesday, the pain was worse than usual. A dull, constant throb that made the walk to the bench feel like a marathon. I got home, defeated. I opened the laptop almost angrily. I put a two-pound bet on the chicken, my "frustration fee." I didn't follow my rule. I just clicked "start" and leaned back, wincing.

The chicken began its run. 1.5x. 2x. 3x (my usual cash-out). I ignored it. The pain in my back seemed to sync with the rising tension of the banjo music. 5x. 7x. The chicken weaved through a log truck. 10x. I was sitting straight up now, pain forgotten. 15x. The chicken had never gone this far for me. It was in a zone, a fearless, digital athlete. 20x. 25x. My two pounds was fifty. My heart was pounding a rhythm I hadn't felt in years—the thrill of a perfect dovetail joint sliding seamlessly home.

At 32x, the chicken didn't just cross the road. It reached the other side, did a little dance, and vanished into a digital cornfield. A victory message flashed. I'd won sixty-four pounds. But the number was irrelevant. I had just witnessed a flawless execution. A perfect run. Against all odds, the chicken had made it.

I didn't cheer. I just sighed, a long, deep sigh of released tension. The ache in my back was still there, but it was background noise. For three minutes, I hadn't been a man with a bad back on a bench. I'd been a strategist, a hopeful spectator, a co-conspirator with a brave little sprite.

I cashed out fifty pounds. The next day, I used it to buy a premium bird feeder and a big bag of seed. I mounted it right outside my window, where I could see it from my armchair. Now, I have real finches and sparrows visiting, their own tiny dramas of daring and reward playing out at the feeder.

I still visit the chicken. Every day. I bet my one pound, cash out at 3x. It's my therapy. It's not about the win. It's about the focus. The simple, absorbing problem of timing a cash-out button. Chicken Road Vavada gave me back a tiny slice of agency. In a life where my body says "you can't," the chicken says "watch me try." And sometimes, against all the traffic, against all the odds, it makes it all the way across. And on those days, I feel like I did too.