Short Fiction

More and more, I'm asking: is it possible to be genetically predisposed to luck? Could some quirk of evolution gift a person that element of fortune, hard-wired into their make-up? I'm not talking about fate, kismet, being lucky in love, beating lottery odds or even finding treasure in a field. I'm referring to the luck of circumstance, of being in the right place at the right time. This luck, then, supposing it exists. Is it lifelong or does it run out? I suppose, one day, it must.

So, let's say you add up all the close shaves of your life. Are you meticulous? Do you analyse the time-line, picking a pattern of order from the chaos of ifs, buts and maybes? No. You just say 'phew' and shrug it off and carry on.

But me, I'm a sudden analyst of hindsight. A bit of an addict for it. Sure, we've all heard stories of people failing to catch the plane that went on to take a plunge in icy waters or suck a clump of geese through its engines. But those are rare. The smaller things I'm talking about. The traffic smash that happened three cars in front, that could have been you for the want of five seconds more. The fallen slab denting the space you could have occupied, but for going back to check if you'd locked the car? There are quantum forces at work every day, bits of trivia and happenstance that add up to life or death. With such competition to live on this planet, the bullet that misses you perforce hits someone else, just as the virus that killed your great-grandfather made you stronger. Somebody's luck runs out every hour of every day and in that vein, I suppose, so could mine.

I'm thinking this because of all the time on my hands. The swelling has gone down now, and they will take the cast off later today, after a final x-ray. It's already starting to itch again in anticipation. The paper is not interesting; I feel divorced, as always, from the bad news, and it is, of course, the only news that sells. There's no visiting either, something's happening to the east wing. A rebuilding that feels more like a demolition, judging by the noise. The subject of luck has become an itch in my brain, stronger than any motivation for a terrorist bomb. I almost don't want to analyse it too much, in case it queers my pitch, so to speak. But with time to reflect, I realise that even this bad break is, in essence, a lucky one. The leg will heal, but those burnt ones underground won't. If I'd made it to the tube station, if the briefcase hadn't exited that exploding window at precisely the right angle and velocity to bisect me... 

I was yards from the turnstile. Yards. 

Ah, what's the use? It was one incident - admittedly the biggest - but just one of a thousand such. But what if it's been happening all my life, and I, the idiot savant of luck, shrugged it off and carried on.

But that's not the worst. There's this awful, nagging suspicion that I might be the Typhoid Mary of bad luck. She herself was immune to it, right? But she spread plenty enough of it around. Right?