The colours of Fortune’s wheel
More creative writing
Hold your breath, the flood is coming. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But you need faith. We need luck. Press your hands to the screen as fast as you can. We need to touch fortune’s fingers.
Aces are high. Pairs are wild. Whip that pair out and let’s get wild. It’s Mardi Gras every night baby! These hoes ain’t loyal but these flushes are royal, so draw another card and take your chance on a dance with the devil. Twenty five cents a pull, bitch. Smell the somber smoke. It smells like stale pussy. You smell like a stale pussy. Draw another card. Take another pull. Pussy.
The bright lights are flashing. The dull lights are changing colour. Watch them move to the music. Red blue and green. Orange and purple dance on the screen. The beat is building now, bitch. Who do you love?
Money, baby. I can’t get enough. I need the gritty green in my grubby hands. You get it or you don’t. Cash these hoes out either way, pimp. It’s time to move on.
Shuffling feet on the streets outside. Friday blurs through to Tuesday in different rooms all the same. We know what we’re doing. We can hold our liquor. We love the smell of smoke in the soft red air. A single glass of grain whiskey on the rocks. A single window peers onto the street.
Outside it’s a flash of colour and a rush of noise. Distraction. Look away. Take my hand. Let me lead you down the path of salvation, through destruction’s door and into the dens of heaven — where they chase criminals out and take taxpayers in. Groans of pleasure are followed by the shuffle of coins. Heads turn to peer through smoke. Dreams of gritty green palms dance devilishly in the mind’s eye.
The hype is subdued in this part of town. The drink flows slow but steady. Composure fills the air. We are ghosts moving swiftly through the eye of time, the spectrum of light and the waves of sound. Fortune visits but she doesn’t stay long. She might be an orange or purple spark in the corner of your eye.
Spot her in a dimly lit bar upstairs, watching through plexiglass over the flashing floor. Rock and roll blares from the speakers. Money moves hands, from rich to poor and back again. Fortune smiles. Walk past the corner where she sits. Peer out to the street once more.
The feet outside stop for traffic. Car wheels spin slowly across the thoroughfare. Open the doors, taxi driver. Let us in. Get us as far as far can be.
Smoke lifts 15 miles out, northbound on the highway. Red air turns to yellow streetlights as the ground swells in front of us. Waves of mountains hide the low-lying moon. Elevate. Open the windows. Feel the desert air as we crest the first wave. The yellows, reds and blues are swallowed up behind us in a flash. Fortune flies overhead as we splash into the valley below. She laughs, flying higher until she’s one of a thousand shining dots in a pitch black sky.
The taxi driver lights a cigarette. The spark sends a stream of smoke into the back seat. Blink, and the bright red cherry will flash in your vision. Through the windshield lies nothing but stars. The passenger side mirror plays back the black mountains we crested, lit from behind by bright yellow light.