There are two cards in front of me.

A Queen and a ten. Cards down, my straight easily beats the lonely high card of the uptight stockbroker across the table. I feel like telling him it’s okay. No matter how big he loses to me, he’ll still have enough money to experience whatever he wants. But he’s started swearing.

I crack a joke which doesn't seem to lighten his mood. I laugh anyway, I can’t help it. I hadn’t realised it could be this easy. Getting out, that is, getting my own life, a real life. That tedium, that routine, that shittily paid desk job at the consulate that would just be so anständig, so proper, I don’t need them. I’ve got nothing behind me and two cards in front of me, two cards at a time, that’s how I’m moving through life.

There are two cards in front of me.

Both are fours. A pair. And not a very good one. Not the position I want to be in, not with a million on the table, not in a final. Isaac Winger knows it. He must have noticed that I’m sweating. I’m talking less. Like I don’t have much to say anymore.

There’s something bestial about the way Isaac is raising the stake. It’s like he can smell my fear and wants to kill, not just beat at poker, but actually kill me with this round. This can’t be about that semi-final four years ago, can it? How could someone take something like that so personally? Holding a grudge against someone for being luckier than you or – but surely he wouldn’t be angry that I’m friendly with people?

Cards down. He’s got a flush, of course. He’s known I’ve been bluffing desperately for the last twenty minutes but his eyes are still darting over the revealed cards, as if he can’t quite believe this is real. This is the first game I’ve lost in half a decade. He looks up at me with a sneer.

“Something for you to chatter on about, maybe, Möwe?”

But I’m not paying attention. A shadow has passed over Isaac Winger’s face. There is a figure behind me. One who I’m not going to look at. I feel sick. Just one loss. These things happen, I suppose, even to the luckiest people. I’m looking straight forward, at Isaac. Not at the figure. I know the figure really wants me to turn around. Isaac’s even started grinning at me now, but I’m not going to turn away from him. It wants me to turn away. To see –

No. Let’s not do this. There are better images than this. There have to be. Let’s go with this:

There are two cards in front of me.

These ones aren’t any good either. Valerian likely knows this. Why he even agreed to play with me, I’m not sure. He never used to be so ready for frivolities like this. These cards really are awful, a two and a seven, different suits. I just can’t get over it. How does this keep happening to me? This was supposed to be a better image. Things were supposed to be different now. But these cards, my luck. Valerian’s saying something. And my hand, too. How did you lose your hand, people ask. You know, in an accident, I reply. What kind of accident? You know, it was… it was… Valerian’s saying something. Or his lips are moving at least. He’s saying:

“Luck is a human projection onto objective mathematical probability which cannot be controlled any more than addition or subtraction. Those who attempt to control luck might as well attempt to change how multiplication works.”

But of course he isn’t saying that. He’s just smiling that faint warm smile of his. He’s been so much softer recently. It’s like he’s in control now, just a little. I really want to be happy for him but I can’t quite remember why and I also can’t find the energy to share his joy. He’s in charge of the BGA, after all. While me, I’m in charge of… well, I’m not in charge… There’s a figure behind me. I don’t want to look but I turn my head just slightly anyway to make sure, out of the corner of my eye, that the figure is still there. The figure’s saying something. You wouldn’t be able to tell from its expression, certainly not from the glimpse I caught of it, but I know the figure’s happy. It’s saying something. It’s saying, We always knew –

Can’t you help me, Valerian? Can’t any of my researchers help me, now there’s more of them than ever? My luck’s all I need. Then the figure will go away. Please. I can’t look at it. I don’t –

Something is wrong with the calendar. I’ve been staring at it for forty minutes, alone, in my room, in this bottom-floor flat in the cheapest part of the city. Something’s very wrong, I know it. There is a figure behind me. There are two cards in front of me.

I’m shaking. What’s wrong with the calendar? The figure’s saying something. I don’t want to turn around, I really don’t, but I can’t stop myself from hearing, the voice is far too clear this time. It’s saying, We know –

I turn around. I have to. If I’m going to do this, I want to be facing the figure. I want to be facing both of them. I feel like falling into a coma, but I look them in the eyes. One at a time. You’ve never known anything, Papa, I say. How, Mama, how could you even have learnt it? I say. I’m trying to sound angry but my skin has been hollowed out and replaced.

They just stare back, unmoving, expressionless as ever. We know what’s wrong with the calendar, Ralf. But I don’t need them to tell me. I know already. I’ve known since I first looked at it. It’s the third of August 2013. It’s my thirty-eighth birthday. Which means I’m the same age – that they were. When they dragged me back from Berlin for the first time, all stern glances and quiet contempt. This can’t be right, this can’t be right at all. I’ve achieved so much more than they had, I know it, were they the youngest ever WorldStars champion? Were you the youngest WorldStars champion, Papa, Mama? I’ve not, I’ve not had a decade of failure, that’s not right, I’m just getting my luck back, I haven’t failed at everything like you said I would, that day in Berlin, all those days afterwards, I haven’t, I haven’t.

But then the strangest thing happens. They smile. And I realise. I realise why I didn’t want to look at them. My skull is echoing, my mouth dry, my heart thudding in my hollow chest cavity. My voice is thin and quiet. Don’t – don’t say it. Please. Don’t tell me –

But you haven’t failed, Ralf. Your anständig little job in that BGA office – why, it’s exactly what we’d hoped you’d become.

I scream. There’s no sound. A sound would be an effect on the world. It would be me in control, changing something about my surroundings.

I don’t have that. I don’t have two cards in front of me. I don’t –

Written by Leo W.

Ralf Möwe, Researcher for Forces Beyond Our Control, sits in the Bundesgeheimnissesamt’s office on Schützenstraße and fiddles absentmindedly with five cards on a tattered string.

Schk.

Schk.

Schk.

They rasp against each other rhythmically, in time with the slow tick of the broken clock on the wall. It’s been stuck ticking at seven past eleven for so many years he’s lost count. No one’s ever been bothered enough to fix it. Certainly not him.

Schk.

Schk.

Schk.

It’s been almost a decade since he took on this role. It feels like the Bundesgeheimnissesamt has barely changed. If anything, it's shrunk. Evelyn got fired. Wilhelmina left. And Johannes retired. But Peter’s here, still, at least. And Valerian, of course.

Schk.

Schk.

Schk.

What has Ralf done in all that time?

What he’s always done. When he’s not killing time in the office, he spends what remains of his meagre salary after food and bills on hiring experts to restore his lost luck.

Schk.

Schk.

Schk.

Ralf sighs. It’s been fifteen years since that ominous first loss at the championships. It feels like he hasn’t stopped losing since. So much money, just thrown away.

Schk.

That antiquarian down in Neukölln who shut up shop and skipped town the moment after Ralf paid them to source that powerful ancient artefact.

Schk.

That medium in Kreuzberg who promised that with enough sessions she could send the bad spirits away. That they’d listen after just one more payment.

Schk.

That Polish guy wandering around Alexanderplatz who insisted he knew a secret means of manifestation. Turns out he was probably just high.

Schk.

Another sigh. All Ralf ever wanted was to be something more than this.

And yet.

Schk.

Schk.

Schk.

An email pings in on the banged up old computer in front of him. It’s from Valerian.

URGENT: Anomalous Findings In Antarctica—Joint Field Research Operation with NATO

Ralf almost laughs out loud. What does NATO want with an irrelevant Federal Agency like the Bundesgeheimnissesamt?

Schk.

Schk.

Schk.

Hm. But…

Schk.

Schk.

Schk.

Well, Ralf thinks, eventually. Of all the places in the world, he hasn’t been to Antarctica. Why couldn’t the secret to restoring his luck be out there?

Yeah, you know what? As stupid as it is, he actually has a good feeling about this. Maybe it’ll be his chance to finally turn his luck back around.