Life's Lottery
Authors: Kim Newman
Contents
Available now from Titan Books
AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
Anno Dracula
Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron
Anno Dracula: Dracula Cha Cha Cha
Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard
Professor Moriarty: Hound of the D’Urbervilles
Jago
The Quorum
An English Ghost Story
Bad Dreams
The Night Mayor
LIFE’S LOTTERY
Print edition ISBN: 9781781165560
E-book edition ISBN: 9781781165577
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: April 2014
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Kim Newman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Copyright © 1999, 2014 Kim Newman
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If Napoleon, for Tom Tunney
If Illya, for David Cross
This is the story of a man who always made the wrong choice. He could have had either of two jobs; he picked the dead end. He could have married either of two women; he picked the nag. He could have invested in either of two businesses; he picked the one that went bankrupt. Finally, he decides to abandon his old life, to change his identity and start again. He goes to the airport and finds he can get on either of two flights; he chooses the plane with the engine that explodes over the Atlantic. So, he’s in mid-air, in an aeroplane struggling to stay aloft, surrounded by panicking passengers. He goes down on his knees in prayer and begs, ‘St Francis, help me!’ The Heavens open, and a divine light floods the cabin. An angelic voice asks, ‘St Francis
Xavier
or St Francis of
Assisi
?’
DAVE ALLEN
(approx.)
M
y friend, you have a choice.
Of course
, you have a choice. You can go this way or that. You can call heads or tails. You can have coffee or tea.
It’s simple.
Except maybe you don’t have a choice. Because of matters settled before your father’s sperm met your mother’s egg, you don’t have a choice. You’re set on this road. You always call heads. You must have tea.
Maybe that’s the choice. To have a choice or not to have a choice. Free will or predestination.
You choose.
Think about it for a while. Use one side of the paper. Leave a wide margin. Don’t skip on regardless, though. Really
think
. It’s important. It affects everything.
Get back to me when you’ve made up your mind. When you’ve chosen.
When you’ve made your choice, go to 2.
T
his much is certain: you make your first choices before you’re born. To kick or not to kick. To turn or not to turn. In the womb, you’re already a person.
Determinations are made before you have even rudimentary consciousness. Though you’re the size and shape of a comma, each of your cells holds a template. The parameters within which you will grow are set.
You are male. You are white, nondescript Caucasian. Your eyes are hazel. Your hair will be blond in childhood but darken in your teens. You’ll have good teeth, eyes that won’t dim until (if) you reach your late fifties, an average-sized penis.
These are the cards you are dealt. You can do little to change them. Nevertheless, you can bet or fold.
Other things are conditional: on diet, exercise regimen, cultural influence. For instance, were you born into certain religious groups or in certain countries, you’d be circumcised in infancy. As it is, you’ll keep your foreskin into adulthood. If you’re ever circumcised, for medical reasons or upon conversion, it’ll be your choice.
You should attain an adult height of five feet eight inches. Even with poor nutrition and a childhood spent in a prison cell (unlikely, but not impossible) you will not be shorter than five five. Only under truly extraordinary circumstances (for example, being raised outside Earth’s gravitational pull) will you grow more than half an inch taller than five eight. Sorry. Those are the breaks. Learn to live with them.
It is possible that your mother’s pregnancy, by her choice or not, will be terminated before you are born.
In which case, regrettably, you must go to 0.
* * *
It was once a doctors’ commonplace that ‘The first five minutes of life are the most risky.’ The saw fell into disuse because wags invariably counter-commented, ‘The last five are pretty dodgy too.’
Find a pack of cards. Take a card at random. Replace, shuffle well, draw again. If you get the Queen of Spades twice in a row, you are born dead. Go to 0.