LISA
Gambling lives.
Mum always said to have a packet with you. Scout camp she forgot my underwear but I’d got a pack of cards in my rucksack. She was right. Snap to Cribbage there was no age limits with a game of cards. I’d killed many hours with a clock of Patience cards.
Lately it’s not been playing to pass the time or a bit of fun. The stakes have got higher than the matchsticks at Nans. A bag of halfpennies turned to banknotes, a car, a house… to this.
I want this to be my last hand even if I win.
RICHARD
The deal
“Fifty thousand in used, unmarked bills up front, then another hundred thousand on completion. Do we have a deal?”
I looked around nervously. I was way out of my comfort zone, but I wasn’t calling the shots.
I nodded, fumbling with my inside pocket for the envelope, which I slid carefully across the table top.
The man in the sharp suit took the envelope and quickly sifted through the wad of cash.
Satisfied with its contents, he pocketed the envelope and produced the contract.
“Sign here, and my client will sign when it’s done.”
Weirdest house purchase I’ve ever made!
LIZZIE
Millions. To sell him for millions. He wanted the millions. He wanted the fancy cars, the huge house, the yacht. He wanted the girls, the jewelry, the paparazzi. He wanted the interviews, the autographs.
Then the millions came and everything else along with it.
It was fun, at first.
When that creep jumped over his fence and held him and his family hostage for half a day, demanding the release of another creep from jail, it wasn’t fun anymore.
He stopped playing football. He moved to the mountains to be free.
But he still kept the millions… just in case.
SERENDIPIDY
I have a deal with the River Styx ferryman – he lets me have first refusal on the bodies that come his way. Those with a decent amount of meat on them, I can have.
He gets to keep the coins, I get the body, and it saves him the effort of rowing across the river and back.
Everybody’s happy.
Well, almost everybody – I can’t say that the souls of the dead are particularly impressed, having to roam the shadows and never achieving peace.
Doesn’t bother me though. I’m tell them I’m a Buddhist, and it’s simply karma doing its thing!
TURA
Deal
———
I owe everything to my father’s advice. He’d asked me how much I was losing on poker. I hadn’t known he knew I played. Not serious money, and I put it down to learning. “It’s not the luck of the draw, it’s how you play the hands, right?” I said.
“Bullshit,” he said. “Control the deal, and nothing else matters.”
So I learned card sharping. Then I took up bigger games. Car dealerships. Construction. Politics. And now, President of the United States. And yes, people did buy used cars from me.
Make everyone play your game, and you’ll always win.
NORVAL JOE
Billbert and Sabrina got to their second period classroom. Before they went in, Billbert held up his hand. “Wait. Help me deal with this. You gave me the koala toy so these knights can’t see me. We make contact every day to keep our magic strong. To be absolutely honest with you, I don’t have magic. I have a super power. So, all your talk about magic is just a delusion.”
Sabrina closed her eyes and shook her head. “Do you know what the difference between a superpower and magic is?”
“No, what?” Billbert asked.
Sabrina smiled, “There isn’t one.”
PLANET Z
I made a deal with the Devil.
I mean, who wouldn’t?
If you could, you would, right?
The things you can ask for, the things you’ll get.
There’s always some kind of twist involved, I know.
But, damn, this was the best milkshake I’ve ever had.
And I said as such.
The Devil was… smiling.
Not that evil grin smiling, but genuinely pleased.
And happy.
“Everybody’s always asking for eternal life, power, women, that kind of stuff,” he said. “But nobody asks for my special handcrafted milkshakes.”
We tapped glassed together and at and watched the sunset over the water.