Bob gaped at the man sitting next to him. "Aren’t you going to bet," he had said, like they were playing poker at a mate’s house after work and all that was at stake was who was paying for drinks. Sure, Bob knew he had to bet eventually. He grasped the concept. That’s what they were here for after all. But a man is not a machine. You can’t just push a button and get yourself to do a thing. He had to prepare himself. There was a lot of psychological winding up to be done. Betting was all about mindset wasn’t it?

Bob tried to look unfazed and said in a throw-away tone of voice: “Well there’s no rush is there.” He gestured his chin at his unfinished beer. “I’m still polishing off my drink here. And, you know, I mean, the long game and all…”

“Hm…” Henry looked away, obviously unimpressed with Bob’s stellar acting. “Well I’m betting.”

“What?” Bob knocked over his little stack of chips as he whirled around. “What?”

“I can’t just sit here. Knowing I have to do it and not doing it. It’s torture isn’t it? The longer I wait the harder it’s going to be.”

And before Bob could reason with the man, point out that the situation need hardly be quite as uncomfortable as he made it out to be, that there were several silver linings if only he’d open his eyes, Henry had thrown down his chips on red.

“Take ‘em back. Quick. There’s still time.” Bob almost did it himself, but then came the cool, professional call from the dealer: “All bets final,” and the wheel began to spin around.

“Shit, shit, shit… What just like that. Give a man some warning.”

Bob was floundering about, almost knocking over his drink. The ball spun around and around in haunting, mesmerizing circles. And then, and then, “come on red, come on red,” Bob was on his feet, cheering and shouting. The ball stopped.

The dealer read out the number: “Black 16, Black 16.”

Henry looked dead on his feet. He had slumped against the table. And then he shot up, looking left and right, searching for the very thing he was afraid to find. There: the sound of booted feet tramping closer. Two suits were forcing their way through the crowd. Bob thought he caught the larger of the two smirking at him. Bastards.

Henry turned to Bob. “Please…” He fell to the ground and grabbed Bob’s knees. He was sobbing, the older man in his fine suit, with his high, complicated talk and business meetings with potential clients. He was looking up at Bob like Bob was the angel of judgement sitting on heaven’s throne with a naked sword in one hand and the olive leaf in the other.

“For fuck sake, for fuck sake…” Bob hesitated only for a moment, then he threw a chip onto the ground. “Take it, take it already.”

Henry dived for it, grabbed it, held it up in front of him like it would somehow shield him from the hands of those black-suited men.

“That’s the last one. I swear to god. The last one. Don’t ask me again. Promise me.”

“I promise, I promise, of course.” The suits didn’t look happy. But they traipsed back off to whatever hidden box they came from.

“So Henry, what do my chances look like now.” Henry took a moment to regain his dignity. He stood smoothly up, patted down his suit and returned to his seat like nothing had happened.

“With three chips, you’ll have to do red or black, the fifty-fifty chance twice. Roughly 25% odds.”

“Those odds don’t sound too rosy, Henry, not too rosy at all.”

“Look here, Bob. If I get my 2x, 2x, 3x, I’ll have twelve chips. I only need ten to get out so I’ll give you the two I don’t need. Then we’ll be even.”

“Fine, fine. But please don’t lose again.” This comment earned Bob a wounded look from the man, like Bob thought Henry was somehow trying to lose.

"You want a short break? Take a short break. Come on have a beer with me. It’ll calm you down. It’s magic beer, I’m telling you. You’ve got to try it."

“No, no. I want to be myself at the end.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Better to be somebody else no?”

He cracked a weak smile at that. Bob called over the waiter and ordered himself another. No point in holding back now. When Bob turned around, Henry was already at the table again.

“What, Henry, already? Hold on a second. Give a man’s heart a break.”

Henry ignored him. He slapped everything on black.

“Dammit Henry, if you fucking lose again…”

Henry continued to ignore him. The ball span and span. It slotted silently into the pocket and the dealer announced the number: “Red 30”.

Henry pounded the table. “It’s rigged. The game is rigged. Bob. I’ve lost eight times in a row. Eight times. Do you know what the odds on that are? 1 in 256, less than a half a percent,” he turned on Bob who had already started backing away, “Bob, Bob, you’ve got to help me.”

Somewhere a door was being opened. “Bob, please, Bob, just one more time. I promise. I promise.”

Bob gritted his teeth. I mean the man was cursed. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t give him another chip. Bob only had three left.

“Bob, Bob, look at me.” Bob looked everywhere but. The men in suits arrived. They were positively beaming. “All done here?” The suit had the gall to ask. And Bob’s silence was answer enough. “Looks like you’re coming with us.”

“Bob, please, Bob, you’ve got to save me.”

The men in suits started to drag Henry away.

“Bob, Bob, you can’t do this to me. Bob, help me.”

Henry was writhing and struggling.

“Anyone, someone, help! Please… I have children. A wife.”

He was shouting at the top of his lungs, looking wildly around, latching on to every eye that caught his gaze.

“You don’t have to do this. You can let me go.” Now he appealed to the man in the black suit. The man just laughed.

“No, no, no… this can’t be the end.”

There was spit rolling down his chin. His face flushed and then drained white. He went limp, mumbling on to himself, and the suits dragged him away to those black doors at the back of the casino.

Bob staggered back to his seat and crumbled onto the stool. A timely arrival of the waiter saw him order a shot of straight whiskey. Pity was damn expensive, Bob thought to himself, damn expensive and somehow it just left one feeling like some heartless bastard at the end. He knew he’d been right. He knew he’d acted sensibly. The man had been a bloody quagmire. The more you put into him, the more you were dragged down. Bob didn’t pretend to understand fate. But he knew what he saw. He knew the look of a dead-end when he saw one.

Still the episode left a bitter taste. He gulped down the shot. It helped a little and he promptly signaled for another. That’s what happens when you try to be nice. It’s a cruel world. Maybe it always was. But now you can’t help but see it. Three chips left. Only three chips and a 25% chance at walking out of here alive. What a way to die. He still heard the bastards laughing as they dragged Henry away.

Would anything stop him spending his whole life here? He waved over the waiter again, who had decided it was more efficient to just hover a few steps behind Bob than try to serve the rest of the company. “Hey, you got any nuts or something. Any bar food?”

The waiter brought over a bowl of crisps and a square napkin. “Now we’re talking. Thanks mate.” He accelerated a handful of fried potatoes towards his gullet and bit down greedily. Bob groaned. Cheese and onion. He hated that flavor. He picked up the little paper napkin and spat out as much as he could. Then he rolled it up and dropped it on the floor (it’s not a real casino). That had been disappointing.

“Hey, you don’t have any other flavors do you? What about ready salted? You must have ready salted?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“Only cheese and onion?”

“Yes sir.”

“Fine, fine, fine,” and he waved the man off.

Bob took another sip of whiskey. Bob didn’t really enjoy the taste of whiskey. It was too sophisticated for him. He didn’t want to have to work so hard to appreciate what he was drinking. He wasn’t sure why he’d ordered it. It had just felt like the thing to order. He wondered if they’d get annoyed if he ordered another beer before finishing the whiskey. They wouldn’t mind, right?

No, somehow he didn’t think they’d let him stay on here indefinitely. They’d kick him out sooner or later. And anyway what a place to grow old in. You’d be better off dead maybe. He’d have to do it, he supposed. Of course, he had to do it. He’d known that he would from the very start. That’s what the challenge was really. You had to be able to bet your life on a chance outside of your own power. You had to be able to give up control. To accept weakness, fate, luck. Only someone who could do that would make their way in this new world.

But you can't help hoping for another way, now can you? Isn’t that what procrastination is it at its heart? A naive hope that the problem will go away on its own if you can only wait long enough. Be nice if it worked some of the time.

He downed the rest of the whiskey. Bwah… That stuff burned. Could anyone really drink this stuff for pleasure? But if he was going to die, and odds were more likely than not, he wanted to go out looking like a G and not like some sod who leaves two-thirds of his whisky undrunk in the glass.

Things were a little hazy. He’d been on the dehydrated side before he’d reached the casino and those two whiskies certainly hadn’t improved things. Good thing there was nothing complicated to do. A hamster could play roulette.

“Here goes death,” he slurred, collecting up his stack of chips (all three), no half measures for Bob and spilled them onto red. Red meant blood and mercy and fast cars. Bob had a good feeling about red. Nothing was more compelling than the logic of colors.

The ritual of betting wound up. There was a lot of money on 13-24 for some reason and some dreamer had put a stack on 29. The dealer started the ball rolling. Bob looked. Bob looked away. Bob ordered another drink. Hell it might just be his last. Bob tried another a crisp. God that stuff was rancid. He put the half-eaten crisp back in the bowl. The ball stopped.