It was pure luck that ovum # 102,364 was released via ovulation from my mother on that exact day in that exact year and was waved down the ciliated tube to meet a suitable suitor. It could've been any of the other hundred thousand eggs she was born with and, if so, I wouldn't be me.

It was pure luck that spermatozoon #43,438,822 was the exact vehicle to deliver the right exact half of my father's DNA. Had it been any other swimmer, then I just wouldn't be me.

And I really do like me, so I am very lucky.

Cowboy hat pulled down with collar straight up, hand on the trigger, walking right into whatever the next adventure life holds. His steps measured realizing the power of luck isn't so much in his corner, as it's more situational. The thing about situations is they change on a dime. Sometimes we walk in tall cotton other times life is cattywampus. Life is what it is, until it isn't.

When I asked where he was headed, he looked at me and half grinned stating, "I figure north is a direction and south is just a lifestyle." He disappeared. Vaya con Dios.

"'As luck would have it'. Curious phrase isn't it? As luck would have it. Is it luck that has brought us here tonight, to this moment? Is it fate? Perhaps they're one and the same, two sides of the same coin, ever present, ever aware of the other, yet destined to never meet...

Whatever force has brought us to this moment, a challenge you have issued, and a choice I must make-"

"Will you just play a damn card?"

"Well... as luck would have it... DRAW FOUR! "

"... This is why no-one wants you at game night anymore Gary."

I didn’t believe in luck until I was 18. A math teacher’s daughter, I lived my life based on hard work and probability. Everything was a numbers game and I calculated my life to the decimal points.

Going to college threw all of my carefully constructed numbers out the window. I still counted everything, but the numbers no longer fit into the carefully constructed box of logic I had built my life around.

17 new friends, 3 jobs, 36 classes, 4 funerals, 1 roommate, 2 boyfriends, 2 break-ups, and a million memories.

I couldn’t call it anything other than luck.

“Ends tomorrow.”

I notice the tagline on the writing contest.

“You haven’t a chance,” a gravelly thought echoes.

I log off my computer just before a thought with an Irish brogue chimes, “Give it a go, lad! This is yer lucky day!”

“No such thing as luck,” the gruff voice croaks with a laugh.

I rise from my desk chair. But before I take a step, the Irish notion replies, “Then what do you call logging off the instant before a massive virus would have struck?"

I sit and log back on.

computer?”

I sit down and log back on.

Four in a lift. Doors stuck.

Relative strangers. Worked on the same floor. I just about recognised them.

"Just my luck" cursed one.

Asked what was wrong. He wanted to get home.

Two said honestly, she was glad to get a break.

Three pulled up a pack of cards, asked us for a game. We played uno and ate my left over m and m's until maintenance came. We exchanged numbers as we left.

"Rotten luck." said maintenance man, letting us out. ,

"Oh, it wasn't that bad," I said, with a smile. And went home to my empty flat.

This world is not what it used to be. Our Grandma told stories about the everlasting water from the streams; our Grandpa told us about the drought.

To our luck, we chose to rob a bank. We escaped with more money than we could've imagined. We drank water for months and gave Grandpa and Grandma their soft goodbyes. We drank water until we became just like Grandpa and Grandma.

Today, I tell the stories of how we robbed the bank to our grandkids, and my brother will tell the stories of how everything went wrong – this time with war.

I slipped on my leather jacket, then I dumped a few quarters in my pocket. I took a few steps… then tripped on my brother’s skateboard. I brushed myself off, then went to the bus stop. My friend wasn’t wearing green, so I pinched him. He pinched back, but he pinched so hard that a small bit of my skin fell off. I was late to class, and once I arrived, I heard Melissa plotting something. Then, at the school assembly, she pantsed me in front of the whole school. At least I figured out what she was up to.

The problem required a professional’s verification. The sheriff was insistent. Several safety-yellow, hydraulic brutes rolled over their garden. The cesspool cover was removed, ripe sewage tainting the air. A crew of five men took turns precariously balancing on the edge of the hole, shining lights and poking downward with poles. Last week’s moaning continued; sad, whalish, inhuman grousing. She presented now only as a plump, half-submerged, dark brown mass, strung between walls the way cheese pulls from hot pizza. But Gladys was a ward of the state and her sentence had not included the neighbors she’d wronged switching to vegan.

We are all whispering. Not wanting the ghost to hear us even though we've agreed that she doesn't listen. Though she seems to see us, past the real people that fill the room. Ghosts shouldn't hunt us, it's not our fault we fell for these blindly let out lies. The trap skillfully woven just like a spider web.

Bad luck, that's what she'd whispered to all of us, the only thing we remember, other than how we let her become our ghost. She'd stuck me through the stomach and twisted. Bad luck was how we died treacherously, unjustly, and unlucky.