Man's best friend.

Whirr goes the cylinder. He takes a deep swig from the glass. The bottle next to it 3/4th empty now. He needs it, needs it badly, to be able to become stupid enough to do the smart thing. His body aches. The door still open. Impossible to lock now since it was broken in the last hour, along with a few bones. The gamblers fallacy finally caught up to the man.

Click. Four more chances now. He fills himself another glass and gulps it down.

Maybe this is a sign. Maybe the world wants him to live.

Memory lane forces its way up even through the blur that is his mind. A happy time with his wife. Yes. He needs to live for her. Who will take care of her if he is gone. He gets up. Satisfied. Ready to fight another day. A delayed realization hits him like running into a brick wall. The last memory of his wife. He sees the love of his life, in another's. The last time he saw her. He sits back down.

Click. Three more chances now. Another glass of booze down the gullet.

Maybe he has lived a horrible life, but maybe life was just a gamble, and all he has to do is just try once again, just try a little more, surely his luck would change.

Memories break their way in, a few years old, bound to emotions as fresh as yesterday. A months long project, pride for the first time in years, lost his job within the week. His work was good, but the machine was better. The house is the world, and him against, and the house always wins. [1]

Click. Two more chances now. It takes a while to pinpoint the glass through the numbing senses and the haze. Once he does though he continues on to another pour and a drink.

He feels a rising warmth within him. Something stirs from within. The realization that every miss is one step closer to his death, perhaps the fear somehow reaching up even through the blur that is his mind, his eyes, his numbed senses. Or maybe his jumbled senses just jumping to random places. Something tells him, himself but he doesn't know it, that he wants to go on. Instinct is one heck of a drug. Dragging man walking even through heck itself. Even against his will.

More memories flood his mind. This time it is dozens of little betrayals. Never a big falling out, but enough small ones that would accumulate over time. Too small to ever point at a single one and feel justified in his angst, but large enough across time and space, to leave a mark. The friends that disappeared over time, the managers who took credit for bits of his work at times, the parents who always felt a little out of sync with his mind. A mild hopelessness that clung like a second skin no matter how hard he tried to forget.

Click. One more chance now. 50-50. That's what he is down to.

He would pour himself another drink if he could even find the glass and hold on to it long enough. Right now He cannot see anything of worth. He cannot even see further than the now, the pure present, even if he tried. The empty bottle next to him had lost him the fight before it even began. He cannot see the future, and the past won't let him go. Weighing him down ever further with every step that he takes. Maybe death is a mercy. Maybe not. All he knows now is that he feels bad for reasons he cannot remember. That he is supposed to press the trigger. He feels so tired now though. He just wants to go to sleep. Yes. That is what he would do. He would sleep it off, and try again, with whatever he is supposed to be doing. It is the closest he gets to peace these past 5 years.

Click. [2]

[1]

[2]

@jackie

!writecel