Mark walked into the casino feeling reckless. He'd spent thirty years working a boring office job and he wanted out. Now. He'd saved enough money to live comfortably but not enough to quit his job. His boss treated him like crap, he didn't get along with his colleagues and the work was as mundane as it could possibly get. He didn't have the patience to play the long game trying to improve his work life. He was stuck in a fixed mindset. He didn't believe he could work on himself and maybe find a better job he'd be happier in. To his mind he had only one choice. He had to rely on luck and risk it all to escape the life he hated.

Mark walked up to the roulette table having traded all his savings for casino chips.

"All in on double zero."

Double zero is the least likely to land on and so pays out the most.

The people around the table fell silent. They'd noticed how many chips he had and glanced at each other, their expressions asking: "How crazy is this guy?"

The Croupier spun the wheel and threw the ball on to it. The ball bounced and rolled and bounced some more. The wheel sped round and round. Red and black, red and black, red and black.

Mark could feel beads of sweat forming in his hairline. His stomach churned and he found himself breathing faster. His heart pounded in his chest.

Finally the tiny white ball wobbled and hovered just over the double zero then dropped over into red twenty seven.

Having never considered that his life could get any worse, it went from being a mundane grind to a pit of despair and destitution with just the simple spin of a wheel.
© Andrew J Sinclair