The Roll of the Dice

Imagine two dice. Six sides each. Twelve sides altogether. Each side different. Each roll giving you a different result. But you never know what that result might be.

A lot can happen because of a dice roll. Hell, life is one big game of chance; sometimes you roll high, other times you get snake eyes. Sometimes you get a middle number and have just enough to make up the losses.

Those times aren't so bad; at least you haven't lost everything. At least you have something to reclaim, as long as you’re smart enough to stop when you have a profit.

Me, my game started two years ago, when I met a girl named Louise. She was pretty, tall and blonde, with a large wallet and a small, cold heart. She took me for quite a ride, let me tell you.

Now, Louise loved to gamble. Roulette was her game; she loved the way the wheel spun. Round and round, until it finally slowed enough for the ball to pick a number. She played avidly, her eyes never leaving the spinning wheel, a cigarette burning away in one hand. But me, my game was at the craps table; rolling the dice and watching the numbers roll out.

I first met Louise in the cafe I was working at. She came strolling in, sunglasses covering her eyes, a straw hat over her long hair and a scarf round her neck. She ordered a large meal that day; a huge breakfast and several mugs of coffee. She’d won a lot of money at the wheel, she'd said as she ordered, and had wanted to celebrate. I had served her, and she left me a tip that could have brought me have a bottle of wine, if I had wanted one.

She came in a lot that week. Flashed around a lot of cash. Maybe that's want drew me in, that allure of money. I got it into my head that she was lucky, that if I could just have her, some of that fortune would be mine. What a fool I was.

Sometimes you mange to roll high, and when I asked her out, the dice I threw were sixes. We had been going to the local casino together for a while at this point, and I had promised myself that if I won five games of craps, I would use my winnings to buy her dinner. Well, I won more than five games, and as promised, I took her out - not to any old cafe though, we went to this posh Italian restaurant that was across town. It was her choice. She had expensive tastes, but I didn't care; for me, it was all worth it.

From that point on, we were a team. We worked together, both at craps and at roulette, and pooled our money together at the beginning and end of the night, sharing both the winnings and the losses. What I didn't see, or maybe what I didn't want to see, was that it wasn't at lot of teamwork at all. She chose what numbers we bet on, what tables to go on, how much to bet. Every time I made a suggestion she snapped at me, or simply glared, and went with what she wanted. Over time, the winnings weren’t split even, and it wasn't long before she was borrowing money off me.

It didn't start off with much. Tens and twenties at first, then it grew to more. Soon, I was lending her several hundred almost every night. On good days, when her luck had been good, she might pay me some back, but most of the time I never saw that money again, except when she was splashing it around.

I guess being with Louise was a lot like gambling. With craps, you're the one to roll the dice, giving you the illusion of having control, of having power. With Louise, I didn't realize the extent of her control over me until it was too late.

Sometimes, you think you roll well, but you still end up losing everything. Like with those sixes, my time with Louise started off fabulous, but I soon started rolling low without realizing it. I thought I was rolling high when I was really only getting twos and threes, and soon those numbers started to catch up with me.

Maybe I just didn't know when to quit. Like in a game where you try to reclaim your loses, I simply didn't know when to stop rolling and to walk away.

In the end though, one of was walked away, but it sure wasn’t me.

Louise finally hit big at the roulette table and won the jackpot, and she decided to move states. At that point, I had been sucked dry, both emotionally and financially, which is possibly why she might have left. Not that she cared about my mental state, she just saw that I could no longer help pay for her addiction.

She left me a month ago, with nothing but a small pile of casino chips and a few bills left in my account. Not much, certainly not enough to pay for this month's rent.

So now I've got one last dice roll left. This one isn't at the casino though, this game is at home, away from the flashing lights and machines and candy girls. This is just for me, two dice, and a revolver on the table.

If I roll high enough, I might live to see the end of the month. If, on the other hand, I roll low....

Life is a game, and like all games, it has to end at some point, whether you like it or not. Sometimes it ends with the big bucks, other times you end up penniless. And occasionally, you end up with a gun by your side as you watch the dice roll from out your hand. Possibly for the last time.

And whether you want it to or not, every game must end.