In the vagueness of my dreams, a handless man sits opposite me at the poker table. "Your turn," he grins sharply as he pushes all his chips forward. The cards are bloodstained. What is it that we do when we dream, anyway? Hallucinate? Prophesise? Remember?

 

I dream most of you, Pa, you on that rainy night in June. I close my eyes and there it is again, those cracked calluses from the toil of sow and harvest, your hand like scratchy lightning crackling across the skin of my back. 

 

It was only an ordinary summer storm but I was weak with terror. Only the firm, warm press of your hand kept me grounded. 

 

Most ten-year-olds are braver than I was. Were you ashamed of the way I cried? You never said so, but you must have wanted a strong, sturdy boy, a sunny child worth double the farmhand—careless, brave, bold. How unfair it is that you got me instead, complete with shifty eyes and sickly skin that never tanned right. Did you ever look at me and swallow your mourning for a son more like you? A son who listened?

 

Nonetheless, that night was a joyous occasion. It's not everyday that you discover your calling, after all. All you had to distract me with was a waterlogged set of cards. Certainly, I have been distracted ever since.

 

Poker, what a game. That rush is now my religion. I remember how my back straightened, eyes sharpening, whispers like white-hot feathers under my skin telling me exactly how to play. Five rounds in and I had a finger on the pulse of the game; two more and I could recognise the beat of when to fold and play. Pa, you should've known this would be dangerous once you saw how fast my tears dried.

 

I only realised just how unnatural this was when I told you the cards could talk and you thought I was bluffing. They may not speak in words but it's language all the same, the way they thrum loud or soft depending on how good my hand is. From there, strategy is easy. Victory has a unique frequency to it—all I need to do is line the cards up until I hit that perfect, melodic ring.

 

Somewhere out there, the devil sits cackling at the irony of a coward falling love with risk. This must be one of his tricks. 

 

That night, under the dim light of the garage, I held a pair of threes against your two aces. Any bright person would fold. 

 

The hum told me to raise. You looked at me like I was mad. 

 

The dealer flipped a three. Then another. Four of a kind. 

 

The vibrations burst into glorious crescendo.

 

That's how I knew this wasn't just intuition. It was a singing rift in the cosmos, a portal to divine knowledge hidden in my ears.

 

You didn't look at me again for the rest of the evening.

 

I was doing so well. Why'd you tell me to stop?

 

I didn't understand. I'd been making a steady profit for the first time in my life. Here was my chance at our big break, I argued. I could go on to win the big tournaments, effortlessly buy us the life our farm could never give us. Why stop me now?

 

I couldn't meet your eyes as I spoke. Part of me suspected that heaven would smite me for even daring to disagree. Quietly livid, I glared at the floor. All I could see was your boots caked with mud, evidence of that age-old asphyxiation—of my father and yours, of all our fathers before us.

 

I confess that I didn't hear a word you said that night. The last thing you said to me and I don't remember any of it, only your hand on my shoulder weighing me down to hell. There was only one thought thudding in my ears, humiliating tears dripping from my eyes while I refused to look up—I need to get out. Something was about to be buried alive. I wasn't going to let it be me.

 

It's been so long, Pa, I need to know. Do you understand why I couldn't stay? I used to wake up at half past three in the morning, straining every muscle in my back sloshing cow pee in the corn fields, frightened out of my mind by even the slightest rustle. I still get nightmares of the cold, wet dirt under my fingers from the time I fell so hard it knocked me straight out of my mind and into the city. There's still soil under my nails, Pa, it still stinks. That wasn't a life. Not when I knew what I could do.

 

What could I do? I nipped that burial in the bud. Even better: I kicked up a storm.

 

You should've seen me go, Pa. You would've been proud. The cards sang hymns every time I so much as looked their way. Cars, booze, girls: you name it, I had it. Poker saved me. Poker made me bold, lent weight to my footsteps, turned a coward into a winner. Where we come from, most of us died without winning a single day of our lives.

 

But it's not enough. 

 

Ten years on, my accent still gives me away. The city boys speak with tongues that have never known coarse grains, each syllable charged with snobby subtext forever beyond my farmer's mind. I'll never be like those spoiled fools with their old money legacies. The most valuable things you gave me were this ambition and the pride of a poor boy.

 

How do I prove to these rich good-for-nothings, who eat pearls and shit gold, that I'm better than all of them?

 

Since they'll never taste defeat in their lives other than at the poker table, someone should ruin the game for them, don't you think?

 

Simply being "one of the big shots" won't suffice. I need to be the absolute best, but it takes more than skill. I can read the cards but I can't control them. Sometimes, a losing hand is a losing hand, no matter how perfectly played.

 

Pa, you've always been my losing hand.

 

What if I wasn't born a poor man's son? If I'd gone to school in the city and learned it all well, if I'd played those better cards right and gone all the way up, if I had the chance to climb the golden rungs in leather shoes... who would I have been?

 

I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in luck. It is, ultimately, the only thing that truly has me at its mercy.

 

Pa, what if I told you that luck could be bought? That I could, with my own hands, manipulate the strings of the universe? Truth is malleable under my fingertips, the indeterminable turned discernable. Never again a losing hand. My days of feeling less than, gone. I'll be a legend in my own right, an unequivocal Midas.

 

For a price, of course. Poker is about taking smart risks. So is life.

 

As I write this, a scene straight out of my dreams unplays before my eyes—the red-eyed, handless man sits opposite me as the deck shuffles itself.

 

He has offered me a deal. A gamble. Luck is his wager. Mine is the rest of my life.

 

I've thought this through well and hard. Pa, how can I refuse? How can I ever lose again, knowing what I could've been? It's only a standard round. I can't even count the number of times I've won rounds like this before. I'll win. With great risk comes proportionate winnings. Can those who did nothing but win the birth lottery say the same? Luck on my side isn't an unfair advantage; it's even footing.

 

The only thing that scares me now is that he's wearing your face. 

 

I can't help thinking of that storm when I was ten. My hands then, still white and soft, already held the inevitability of the same scars. In them I saw myself for what I was: a crime not yet committed.

 

What does that make you, Pa?

 

Which tragedy is worse? The one that could have been prevented, or the one that couldn't? These bloodstained cards are ours. What have we done with our hands?

 

Forgive me. I must lay my pen down here. The cards have been dealt. Everything you gave me is on the table—all my years, every single one you gave me, wagered on a single hand.

 

Pa. I chose this, the burden and the glory. It's all mine. Never doubt that.

 

I'm going all in.