The bone-chilling downpour of rain felt heavier than usual tonight. Perhaps it only felt this way due to the over-saturation of my antiquated coat - that being said it’d been a long, stormy day. My treacherous, penultimate journey wasn’t something I pursued joyfully, however it was whole-heartedly the right thing to do.

I was cursed. Since my juvenile years luck was always something that I perceived more as a playful pursuit; if you worked your game strategically, my favoured outcome would be inevitably assured in enrichment. I was naive.

It started with scratch cards. Once a week, twice a week, the balance of spendings & winnings gradually tracked in my favour so I moved onto bigger things - leading me to the horses where I generally had the largest spike in profits. Regrettably I could have stopped once my beautiful ex-wife gave birth to our darling daughter Cleo, the day she was born secured me the biggest joy I’d ever attained & with that came more detrimental excuses. I’m not sure whether I was trying to kid my wife or myself when I said I did it all for her but unbeknownst to me the grand amount of wealth I hopefully preached of in her name was thoroughly insignificant compared to the security that I, as her father, should have provided.

I’m ashamed of what I did. The lies, the thievery, years of trust were tarnished through my own selfish desires. Nobody was foolish enough to believe my justification of “I did it all for my baby.” The only one foolish enough to believe, if anybody - was me. I took her home, I took her childhood and now I can’t even see my precious child to compensate all the wrong-doings. Her mother filed for a restraining order - initially I was immensely aggravated by this decision however looking back, maybe it was the best thing to happen to me. The damned life I live now is all about owning the streets whilst searching door-to-door for a brief seclude on the most perishing of nights. Truly, I had reaper what I had sewn.

Even after my life had caved in the gambling persisted, to an extent; one lottery ticket a week. I’d not one so far but it was the only thing I could afford on my wholly uncertain income from my fellow man. There was a light in me determined luck would somehow find its way to my favour - I wasn’t going to let it die out.

I was right. I won. The whole jackpot was mine.

I was hesitant to trust my own perception of the winnings as it seemed far more likely at this point that I was going crazy, rather than that I’d actually won. However despite my own disbelief I really was just that lucky - as I’d always known. The sheer possibilities that this opened for me was surreal; I could buy a car, buy a house, start my own business, give back to my daughter-

Pessimistic realisations streamed through my person like a diminishing hot flush. No matter how much I wanted money to buy me back my family, I couldn’t. There was no way I could even make contact just to notify them of my winnings.

All of this lead me to where my story began, exhausted & drenched under relentless showers of rainfall. Taking my penultimate walk to the baron flats where my family resides, my daughters winning ticket enclosed within a sealed envelope. Along with a farewell note, before taking my final stroll:

“Cleo, it’s your lucky day.”

The End.