This post is inspired by true events…
Many years ago, our family was on vacation with friends of ours. In the interests of mystery, I will refer to them only as the P-family. The vacation was a blast. We ran and we jumped and we ate lollies and we swam and the world spun merrily under our feet and all was good.
I don’t remember exactly how old I was at the time. Maybe 14 or 15?
We were staying, as I recall, in an ancient Australian abode that looked a bit like this:
It was open and windy. One of those old homes that spiders use as a highway and that didn’t even have a light in every room. The awning had kept the sunlight out for ever, and the whole place smelled of yesterday, and of dreams unfulfilled.
Late one night, whilst the parents discussed boring-parentish topic, the kids were all in one of the pentitential bedrooms playing cards. That would have been me, my brother, and the two eldest P-kids: BP and AP. The night was not young, and the wind was howling outside. We were sleepy, as we would have been after endless hours of running and jumping and eating.
We were playing, as I recall, gin rummy. The cards were dealt, and the top card turned over. This is what is was:
(well, not exactly that card… but read on!)
There was mutual dissatisfaction with the cards that had been dealt, and the decision was made to toss the hand and redeal. This was promptly done. Cards were collected, reshuffled, redealt and the top card was once again revealed.
And this is what it was:
There was unease in the room. The more craven amongst the group no doubt felt a flutter of fear in their souls, because even though we were children and couldn’t have possibly known the chance that this had occured was 0.034%, we certainly knew it was unlikely.
At this point, as I recall, the decision was made to end the game and go to bed. My memories become somewhat clouded at this point, as if some unknown agency was thwarting my recollection. Before ending the game, we mutually decided, we would deal one more hand just to reassure ourselves that it couldn’t happen a third time.
An eerie silence had descended upon the room. The air felt heavy and old. If I had been paying attention, I would have noted that the voices of our parents chatting from the living room had faded away, and that time has seemed to concentrate into that one room, specifically onto my hands holding the cards, slowly shuffling them…
There were two younger children as well. I recall the young boy (DP) was especially spineless, and gibbered a little as I carefully dealt out the cards, and placed the deck onto the floor in front of us. I couldn’t have possibly known how to calculate that the chance of a third-time repeat would be 0.00063%
An icy hand was placed on mine shortly before turning the final card. It belonged to AP, the P-girl. Her eyes implored me: “Please, don’t do it!”
But I did. Even then I had the soul of a man, and nothing as… material as a deck of playing cards could change that!
I turned the top card, and it was:
