Gambling the New Beginning
written by: George Gad Economou
New Year’s Day, minutes past midnight. alone
in his room, the young man drank some cheap champagne,
tasting like bubble water with a weak punch, then chased
it with a pull of Evan Williams out of the half-empty bottle.
no more booze in the apartment, and only five cigarettes left.
in two days, he’d return to the local supermarket, once more
to stock shelves and work behind the register for ungrateful bastards
looking down on him like a lesser life form.
six hours of his day spent on being a dancing monkey, then the
rest of the day’s dedicated to medicating on
rotgut and stale cigarettes, just to recover from the mental and physical toll
of those six hours stealing his soul for less than the minimum wage.
barely surviving stopped making sense after another pull out of the bottle.
he lit a cigarette, taking deep and long puffs, savoring every puff.
he logged into his online casino account, wondering if it was a good idea.
another swallow, and he knew it was the only good idea.
he put everything he owned in the casino account—3K, and some change.
his bank account drained, his casino account all loaded up; he picked
one of his favorite slots, the only one that once gave him a 1K win.
he raised the ante to the maximum: twenty euros per spin.
he had often wondered how it’d feel being filthy rich, able to
spin with the maximum amount available just for the fun of it.
Evan Williams helped him conquer his fear of poverty, and he started the automatic
spins. a hundred and fifty spins that would determine his future.
he leaned back, drank long, and smoked. watching every spin eat up
another twenty, sometimes giving him back five euros; a couple of spins won
fifty euros. just enough for a couple extra spins.
a big win came after about seventy spins. a grand. not enough to justify stopping.
another decent win; two thousand this time. barely enough to make him
think about taking a three-hundred loss and returning the rest to
the account so he could go back to how things always were.
“fuck it,” he mumbled in his drunkenness, starting another
round of a hundred automatic spins. he broke even,
again, and he went for another hundred spins. one cigarette left,
and only one swallow in the EW bottle. “last chance,” he promised
himself. he’d take a small loss. he gave it a shot, failed to
make the big bucks. the final hundred spins.
he could almost see the EPIC WIN graphic on his screen, with blinking lights
and celebratory sounds, but only in his wistful dreams.
the hundred spins ended, leaving him with four hundred euros.
twenty spins, or barely enough to see him through until the next paycheck.
his savings had allowed him to live on a part-time minimum wage job.
now, he was about to join the army of people going paycheck to paycheck,
saving on even the absolute necessities just to make it through the month.
twenty more spins left; one spin could suffice to change everything.
he did the spins.
in some parallel world, he probably won the jackpot, retiring
at the age of thirty-one.
in the real world, the young gambler was left with ten euros.
just enough for a pouch of tobacco and some rolling papers, so he
could at least have a few smokes per day until paycheck day.
he walked out on the balcony to let
the cool air wash away the regret swarming his body.
a jump from the fourth floor would be a quick end.
definitely. he was broke, forced to stay at
his dead-end job and with no hope of finding something else.
thirty-one years on the planet and he had accomplished nothing.
empty bank account, loveless, a life of just working and sleeping,
dreaming of lives unlived.
the jump would be quick, almost painless.
he drew a deep breath and put his hands on the cold metal railing.
he bet his life on Lady Luck, and the blind bitch flipped him off.
perhaps, it was his turn to flip her the bird, too.
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