Antoine's Curious Collection of Arbitrary Short Stories

Dumb Luck

I didn't realize it at first; I thought everything was just plain coincidence. Normal, that's what I thought about my life. It started with little things, it won't cross your mind because little things have little effects, and it's like nothing really happened.

A pattern, that's where I get the idea that something is not right. It's hard to explain. Just think of you wishing not to have classes tomorrow, of course it won't happen, it's already written on your schedule and it won't suddenly change within your given time. The weather's okay: no sign of a typhoon approaching, no sign of raining, just a normal day, no events or anything that will excuse or suspend the class but it happened.

Luck?

Maybe, but how about if it is being consistent? That everything you say will be done, but only if it has a negative effect in a greater number of people. You can't ask for world peace, that's out of the game. You can't also ask to be a billionaire or to win the lottery. Negative on other's but convenient to you, just convenience nothing more. It won't cross your mind right? You'll just think that it's dumb luck.

When i was kid I always had this seatmate; he's the typical kid that loves attention. He throws stupid jokes and everyone laughs at it, but i don't. He's annoying; love's to meddle with other people's businesses and makes fun of them; shallow.

He gets on my nerves so one night I asked for him to disappear in my life and the other day, he really did. He changed schools, i didn't know what the reason was behind it and I didn't dare find.

It's all like that: I always ask something and it always happen. When I hadn't reviewed for our exam, I always asked for it to be rescheduled and it did. When I'm sick and can't get to school, there won't be much to do. When I'm late, my professors are late too. Coincidence? Maybe. Little things. I thought I'm just born lucky and God's always in favor of me. He knows when I need him.

Back in college, I had a presentation in our class and it will cover half of our grades, I studied it carefully, practiced the way to convey the information, I exerted all of my efforts. The day I have to present it I got stuck in a heavy traffic, there's an accident that happened. I was so nervous. The 30 minute interval turned to 5 and yet I'm still nowhere near the university. Anxiety filled me; if i fail this, I'm going to start all over again. No. I prayed and asked for a miracle, I don't want to fail, please.

Just after praying, one of my group mates texted me that the presentation has been cancelled. Relieved, I didn't even ask why. I'm just glad that it's cancelled. I got home after the chaos. The next day I went to school.

"It's a normal day," that's what I thought. News spread that one of the professors that was supposed to grade us also got into an accident. It says that he got decapitated, he died. My hands were shaking, though it still hadn't occurred to me that I might be one of the reasons for his death.

We moved on and still continued to live our life, I've got a girlfriend, graduated college, got a job. My life's been great until I found out that my girlfriend has been cheating on me with my boss. I was so upset but I didn't do anything.

I didn't tell them that I knew. I just asked the karma to do its thing on them. It did. They've found out that they're both HIV positive. I also got scared for my health so I checked up on it. Negative.

Dumb luck, but what's worse that knowing your girlfriend cheated on you is that you're still in love with her; that no matter what she does, you can't help to fall out of love with her. So I prayed again; I prayed for her health. And the other day she told me that she got a second opinion with other doctors: negative. That was where it hit me: there's a part in my brain that got unleash all its hidden memories.

When I was a kid I had a bully who always made fun of my appearance. I asked for him to get blind and the other day he got into an accident that made him blind. There's a lot of it, lots of bad memories. They're attacking me and then everything went blank.

I woke up with a white ceiling over me. I scanned the surroundings with my eyes and figured that I'm in a hospital. They said that I've got cancer, leukemia, Stage 4. I smiled with the news, it's funny that I've prayed to the wrong God. I guess i have to pay for all of it, dumb luck.