Chance

[Aardvark]

Luck, chance, fortune, things we cannot control control us. One in sixty million chance that we were born, as opposed to someone genetically similar, but totally different. Odds stacked against us that we survive to maturity. Living in a world where no matter how many safety signs they put up or sharp edges they coat with rubber, there are still hundreds of thousands of ways to die. Billions upon billions of cells in your body, any one of which, at any time, can turn against you. Millions of other people, many of whom can drive and do vote, around you every single day, each decision they make potentially impacting upon your life, your little world, either now or later in life, and you rarely know they've been made. When you think about it, chances are, you will die at any given moment and you have no say in the matter.

 

"Three dee six" he said to himself.

 

He studied the red cubes in his hand. He'd raided old, abandoned board games in the tops of cupboards to find these three. About fifteen millimetres cubed each, painted a nice bright red, with white dots signifying numbers on each side. Numbered one through six. With each pair of opposite sides adding up to seven. When tossed, each side had an equal chance of coming up. One in six chance of his number coming up. But he had three. One in two hundred and sixteen chance of any combination coming up. If the dice were different colours. Or had some other way of differentiating between them. Numbers themselves had differing odds. Thirteen was the most common, he remembered.

 

Life had gotten to him. In his sixteen years, he'd never felt as bad as he was now. He hadn't done anything. Never. Not a damn thing. But everyone and everything was against him. His parents thought he was a freak and forced him to see a psychiatrist each week. A middle aged woman who only knew his name because it meant one hundred and twenty dollar an hour to her. A woman who asked about every detail of his life, but didn't care. He knew she didn't care. It took all his willpower each day to not ask her why she does what she does if she doesn't care. His teachers couldn't stand him. They said he was a disruptive student. Simply because he couldn't accept the facts they were teaching him without questioning them. Why couldn't he just conform like all the other students. He needed more information, that's all. Needed to properly understand what he was being taught, that's all. And they branded him disruptive for this. His friends... he had few. Of everyone he knew, he could count on his fingers the number he could relate to. And it wasn't very encouraging that they had problems of their own.

 

He looked down to his other hand. The one wrapped around the grip of his father's revolver. Today could be the last day of his life. They had been getting worse. The pressure from everyone around him. And there was nothing he could do about it. He felt the weight of the weapon in his hand. He mimed a gunfighter, firing off six shots in rapid succession. Then he pressed the barrel of the weapon to the side of his head. He started squeezing the trigger... then released. No, that wasn't how he was going to do it. He put the weapon down and picked up the dice. He began shaking them.

 

Forty seven times, he'd been in this situation. Forty seven. The dice in one hand, the pistol in the other. When he found his father's gun, three years ago, he'd almost ended himself right there and then. But then he stopped, a mere two millimetres away from annihilation. He hadn't known this, though. What had stopped him was fear. Cold, gripping fear. Was this really the best way to deal with his situation? End his life? His parents probably wouldn't even notice. They were too busy with their careers and only found out because of the notices of concern flooding the mailbox. His teachers would probably be pleased. One less disruptive student slowing down lessons. His friends... well, they'd all lost someone already, what's one more person to them?

 

But himself... Did he care? When he thought about it, he couldn't decide. He could not decide whether he wanted to live or die. Should he? Shouldn't he? Of all the ways he could die, by self inflicted gunshot. Was that how he wanted to go? The one part that was truly him smeared all over the plaster walls of his home? He couldn't decide. He decided that he needed someone else to decide. Or something else.

 

"Three dee six," he repeated to himself.

 

In the end, survival instincts got their claws into his plan. Survival and three red dice just happening to be all in the one spot. He decided from the beginning he should go with the absolutes. Three and eighteen. They were the numbers he'd be concerned with. Anything else, put the dice and gun away and come back next time he felt the need to end. But the extremes, the one in twohundred and sixteen. At first, he thought three should signify "Shoot". Then he looked at eighteen in dice form. Six Six Six. He'd laughed. What would the newspapers say if a boy had been found dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound with three dice with all sides showing sixes? So that was that. Eighteen would mean he took the gun, pointed it to the side of his head and pulled the trigger. He had a thought at that moment. Would it be possible to pull it twice before he lost muscle control?

 

Three, on the other hand. The other extreme. One One One. Well, if death was already taken, three would then mean life. If he ever rolled a three, he would destroy the gun, melt the dice and just endure until he left home. Yeah, that was fair.

 

He shook the dice in his hands. He always spent around five minutes shaking. He raised his hands above his head, closed his eyes and released the dice. The next few moments seemed to take forever. He could hear his heart thumping slowly as the dice fell to the table. He heard each one clatter on the wood, seeming to echo off to infinity. He slowly opened his eyes.

 

Six

 

Six

 

Six

 

He lost all control of his body. His arms moved of their own will. His hand grasped the broken weapon, spun the chamber, flicking his wrist to close it, just for effect, raised it against the side of his head, just above his ear and pulled the trigger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click

 

 

 

 

 

He opened his eyes. He was still alive. His first reaction was to check the dice. They still read eighteen. He then looked at the gun. He was sure he'd pulled the trigger. He broke the weapon again and examined the chamber. Then he laughed. He laughed loud, he laughed long and he laughed hard.

 

There was only five rounds in the weapon.

 

He'd just spun the one in six veto over his three dee six

Edited June 30, 2003 by Aardvark

[Nobody of Consequence]

Great piece, as usual.

 

My general impression of your style is that you start off each story with what comes across as being a narratorial solliloqoy. These read well, and are very entertaining, but it seems as though we get pulled in by the narrator, and then we switch to the point of view of the protagonist, and I'm not sure why you're structuring it that way. I'm guessing that you start with an idea, write an opening, and by the time that's done you're ready to move into the story proper, and that just seems superfluous. Just for comparison's sake, think about how this piece would work if it started at the beginning of the second paragraph of the current version.

 

Having said that, and in full awareness that I could simply be missing something, if you'd care to share your own thoughts on structuring, I'd be glad to hear 'em.

[Peredhil]

Reading this grips a person like a fist, and doesn't let go until the tension filled end.

 

Regarding NoC's point, I'll quote my Mother, "after you've set out to write, discard the first paragraph. It's usually just clearing the pipes for the piece."

[Ayshela]

Discard the first paragraph... an interesting point. i'd not really considered how often the first paragraph is sort of a "throat clearing" for what you really want to say.

 

In this case, i would feel a bit of loss at seeing the first paragraph cut. It's a decent set-up, a good contrast from all that is beyond your control to that which is theoretically firmly withIN your control, and the ambivalence of seizing that control.

 

Hmm. Perhaps a separate thread, so they aren't completely lost - "Aardvark's thought provoking first paragraph cuts"???

[Nobody of Consequence]

Ayshela - I agree with you to a certain extent, but the reason I thought it may be worthwhile making the cut is the old "show don't tell" dictum. I think he did a good enough job that the rest of the story still communicates the same ideas without it, though again, that might just be misreading.

 

Btw, that's an interesting idea about a thread for cut opening paragraphs...

 

/me sneaks off to do something

[Ayshela]

*nod*

oh, you definitely get the power struggle throughout the rest of it. i wasn't in any way trying to say that was missing. i'm just personally fond of some of the "cuttable" opening paragraphs because (and this is a good example of it) in the"this is how i got here" setup of the story there's a lot of good stuff. That one paragraph took longer to read than the rest of the story in entirety because it's very thought provoking.

 

i'm not saying there isn't a discrepancy in voice from the opening to the story itself. i'm not even saying that there isn't a point to be made for cutting it. i'm just saying it's on its own good stuff and i'd hate to see it lost.

 

that's all.

[Nobody of Consequence]

No argument there, at all

[Aardvark]

The first paragraph puts me in the right mindset for the rest of the story. I've discarded countless stories, both here and in the past, just because I got to the end of the first paragraph, sometimes not even the first sentence of it, then just alt+f4ed the page out of existance. The only time I ever edit one of my stories is when I spot a typo that the spellchecker didn't pick up (In this one, sides somehow became sixes). I never cut anything out once I'm done and only ever change something if I'm really unhappy about how it feels to me.

 

All arguements for the discarding of initial paragraphs can be ended with one title. Tale of two cities.

 

Unless someone finds Dickens' mysterious discarded initial paragraph