{"id":1905,"date":"2023-12-16T11:28:33","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T11:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1905"},"modified":"2023-12-16T11:28:38","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T11:28:38","slug":"all-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/all-in\/1905\/","title":{"rendered":"All-in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you remember\u2026 our games?\u201d the old man struggled to speak. \u201cI used to call you\u2026 Miss Fortune\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his first night at the casino, he was eager to play with the money his father gifted him. That\u2019s when they first met. That night, as all nights that followed, she wore red: a slim-fit dress, high heels, and vibrant lipstick to match it. She was the goddess who joined them, mere people.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure,\u201d Miss Fortune replied, sitting beside his bed in the hospital. \u201cAnd you were right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Miss Fortune used to come and turn the whole evening in her favour. She was smiling, collecting yet another stack of chips won from people at the table. There was something hidden in that smile on her young face, something that couldn\u2019t let him go.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I wanted\u2026 was your power,\u201d his speech was interrupted by the cough. He took a deep breath. \u201cThat\u2019s what was at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years to come, he wasn\u2019t as carefree as before. His father died and left him a business that was falling apart, and he also had his own family to care for. To stay on his feet, he needed a game-changer. So, he went to the casino; naturally, she was there that night.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was clever of you.\u201d Despite the room being only half-lit, it was clear that none of the decades passed shoved on her face. \u201cYou just didn\u2019t notice where it\u2019s coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were playing \u201call-in\u201d. As the dealer revealed the last card, he froze. He hoped for better. There was <\/em>a Pair of Jacks in his hand, but she, with her luck, could\u2019ve had a Full House. He already felt it \u2013 endless fall to the blackest pit. Gambled and lost everything. However, one heartbeat later, Miss Fortune revealed just a Queen high.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy did I win?\u201d. Looking back, he realized how na\u00efve it was to believe without questioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He hasn\u2019t seen her again after that. Instead, he got lucky himself, and not only in the casino. Always the man to strike the idea, complete a perfect affair, and get the best deal. As he was hitting the sky, he failed to notice the people around were falling deeper and deeper.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou knew it from the very beginning.\u201d She was smiling in the very same way as she did years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The money was coming and going so effortlessly that he stopped noticing it. The people were unhappy around him and, therefore, left. He could afford everything, but there wasn\u2019t anything that would make him intrigued.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, you were\u2026 my misfortune\u201d, the dying old man sighed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here he was, in the end, by pure luck clinging to the last thread of the life that felt way too long now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She rose up to her feet and quit the room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miss Fortune used to come and turn the whole evening in her favour. She was smiling, collecting yet another stack of chips won from people at the table. There was something hidden in that smile on her young face, something that couldn\u2019t let him go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[695],"tags":[1121,642,269,1090,8,7,122,20,1119,491,14,191,118,1120,11],"class_list":["post-1905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","tag-casino","tag-father","tag-first","tag-fortune","tag-he","tag-her","tag-him","tag-his","tag-miss","tag-night","tag-she","tag-there","tag-they","tag-used","tag-was"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-uJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1907,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}