“Hey, did you hear that someone won the lottery again…second time in a year? How lucky can someone get? Well, good for them!”
You stare straight ahead, “Yeah, I heard.”
Bullshit. Lucky is right. Some bastard is sipping French wine and playing Roulette in Vegas and you are sitting in this stinking bar at the end of Main Street, swilling stale beer and looking at the Lotto board. Good for them? Bullshit.
You check the numbers and the extra from last game…sixty seconds to go. Your numbers came up ten games ago and none of them have come up since. It might be time. You take another sip of beer and search your mind for answers…this game, or should you wait? Nope, not time yet. This has to be calculated out. It has nothing to do with luck. It’s all about timing. You can beat this thing, you know you can. You look into the grimy mirror behind the racks of whiskey bottles. You stare at yourself between the caps, the, glasses and the chipped paint, into the eyes of a predator, a hunter. It isn’t luck at all, is it…it’s primitive instinct of survival, it always is. If you could unlock those hidden instincts, you could zip ahead of the car in the next lane, get into the shortest line at the bank, be first in line on Black Friday, find the best deal on a car, and beat this fucking Lotto…competition, winning, bringing home the bacon, survival…no, it isn’t luck at all.
Your stare is broken by the bartender. “You ok? You’re quiet today.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m fine. Thanks.”
Ok? Hell no, you’re not ok. You’re sitting in this shit-hole bar drinking warm beer out of a filthy glass with a bunch of know-nothing jerk-offs looking for some flying fairy to whoosh in with the winning number. What you need is to be out in the wild, to unlock your primitive man, connect with your cave man ancestors…escape through the Fourth Window…where time is measured in lifespans and place is merely where you stand…like when you were broke and homeless in Denver, or ten years later battling with 24 warriors in 600 horse powered chariots…or ten years later standing in the darkest depths of Hell fighting shadows in your mind. That’s what you need. You know life is too easy, too cushy, could you survive out there, alone…just you and nature? I dare you…look deep into the image in that filth-stained mirror and ask yourself, what if all this ceased…no electricity, no freezers, no cars, no gas, no heat, no food, could you and your family survive? How deep is your instinct for survival? What's on the other side of that mirror?
It's time to play your numbers...oh and Good Luck.
This use of 2nd person is quite like the last one you did. Do you think 2nd person is only ever going to produce this angry accusatory tone, or is it possible to get another tone from this "person"
ReplyDeleteThis time the 2nd person makes me feel anxious and it's a tough place to be as a reader. What I kept wanting was for the narrator to get "lost" in the mirror somehow. Or, for the refrain "Bullshit" to be used more songlike. Maybe asking some questions will help you know what I mean? What is the narrator so angry about? (I mean, beyond the obvious). What's the underside broil going on here? I want to witness. Broke and homeless in Denver? Bring it on. Bring it. Get even messier.
ReplyDeleteThat person who won the lottery twice in a row might just have known how to play the system somehow. If that's the case, they'd be one of the top runners for survival in the apocalypse. Can't just assume it's all luck, especially with those odds.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anne, MESSIER! I felt the the engines of this piece were just getting revved up, Like who cares about the lotto? Yeah, ok, your pissed cause you cant win a dime, grow up peter pan, whats the big picture here? There's some back pressure on the words that come out of your mouth and we haven't seem the really come out yet. Keep going.
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