Cross

Cross

Cross, cross, cross. 13, 23, 28, 33, 10 and 16 I struggle with the last
few numbers. Its Friday just after eight the weekend is to start and I
am intending to win the lottery tomorrow.
I am sure this time around cause I got the numbers given to me by
someone, someone I decided to trust for once someone I payd a fiver to
for the numbers so they must be good numbers I think.
Later on that night I go out and knowing that I will win the jackpot I
am not shy spending a few bucks. I am in town in a posh bar drinking
coctails that I couldn't afford otherwise. There is a girl, there's
always a girl in a bar like this and I buy her a drink and then another
and then I buy her friend a drink too and suddenly it's just me and
them, we are alone together in the bar and the bar is about to close
and they both stare at me as if I was somekind of god, with plate sized
eyes wondering what can be now.
There is another bar I know further up the street it's not posh and
there aren't any coctails but I don't tell the two girls cause I don't
want them to leave. Not yet anyhow. The other bar is dark and dinchy
but it has its charm I think and I can see the two girls, how they
raise their noses and look at me. I don't mind and offer them another
drink and they stay with me again not on coctails this time but on
cheap wine and they are not sober anymore either, none of them. They
keep looking at each other behind my back and then they look at me
straight, they both smile and there smiles look fake, like their
eyebrows and there fingernails. Even their breasts are probably made of
foam, I think. I smile back it's a stern smile I give them a good one
that I had copied today at work from an internet page about smiles.
It's a good smile, it's an I know what I want and I know that I get it
smile and I think it works.
As we leave there is doubt again when the cold of the night creeps up
my legs there is all the doubt that I had all day perhaps all my
life.
When they look at me again with a question in their eyes I just shrug
my shoulders. There are no more answers tonight. I ask them if they
want to come back to my place but they don't as I knew they would do
and I know that I will never, never see them again. I shrug my
shoulders again as they turn on the empty street to walk back towards
town back to the glamour and the coctails and the neon signs that keep
flashing day and night. I just stand there and stare as the dark
swallows them and they are out of my world again.
I stand and stare till a cleaning truck almost runs me over. The street
is glistening with the fine raindrops that started falling when we came
outside and there is steam coming out of the sewers. I notice that my
legs have started walking home and I finally turn to follow them.

The next day is a grey day. I sooth my hangover staring at the wall
opposite my bed which stares back. My room is small with a small bed
and a small chair and table, and a small cupboard that got all the
things I have inside.
There is a pocket washer and a pocket computer that doubles as my phone
and my stereo, then there are three identical suits in various states
of decay standard suits nothing special, grey with greyish blue
sliplines runinng down the legs were they should be. There is a video
visualizer that you can tune to anything and it will play just that,
its three years old but still quite a good buy, I got it cheap back
then, I think it fell of a lorry.
I got eight hours till the lottery results, eight hours till my life
will change for good.
Forever, I keep thinking, forever different.
When the lunch call comes for the second time I leave my room. I missed
breakfast but I will have to get lunch and after lunch I will leave the
building perhaps for the last time.
Its hot again and my legs take me to the park that looks like a bleak
desert, today all the trees are shriveled up and the grass is a dark
shade of brown rather than green. I just walk looking at the sky that
has no definable color. I have to think about something that happened a
few years ago although it feels like a million right now. A million
years was when the dinosaurs were still around I remind myself and have
to smile. I am still smiling when I am back on the street, walking
towards the "Center for meeting Strangers" a popular hangout these
days.
The place to score anything from pirated software to hard drugs or porn
or girls, boys u name it and u can be sure there will be someone who
got what you look for. I am not looking just window shopping. Gazing at
whats on offer and secretely selecting what I will spend my winnings
on.
That is when I start having doubts again the 'what if' remains in my
mind just as vivid as always.

© Marcus Bastel