…Life is after all nothing more than a drawn-out game of Russian roulette… 

Allow me to share a short-story with you. It’s a classic. You’ll be thinking about this story long after you are done reading it, I assure you. Here is the link to that story.

No, wait!

Before I give you that link, let me first tell you another story. The story may be true. But then it may not be. A 50-50 chance, I’d say. Anything is probable when the populace chooses to follow the bizarre custom of not using common sense. 

We are under ‘strict’ lockdown here in the splendorous town I call home when I am not back home in that land far away. Normal pandemic-lockdown rules.  We can shop for ‘essentials’ a few days a week from 6am to about 10am. Medical facilities and crematoriums are open for business.  Some people break the rules and drive their cars and bikes as and when they wish, some don’t. Fair enough. That’s what makes us, us. So, this fellow, a well-to-do businessman who truly believes that societal rules that apply to the commoners don’t (and shouldn’t) apply to his ilk, trotted off to the marketplace to buy a crate of mangoes he (like the rest of the population here) considers ‘essential’ for sustaining life during this sybaritic season. We love our mangoes around here; over a thousand varieties just in the state where I live. At the shop, the predominantly unmasked masses, frenzied as if they were revelers during Mardi Gras in the French Quarter of New Orleans, gave new meaning to the term ‘anarchy’. The rich and the poor, the laborers and their masters, the clean and the shabby, the riff and the raff, huddled and jostled to get their stash of mangoes before supply ran out like the oxygen recently had. The 6-meter social distancing metric was passé. 6-centimeters was more like it. They say that even the Covid-19 virus had the humility to don a mask and wait at a safe distance from the crowd till the time was ripe. Aren’t you afraid of being infected, someone asked the businessman, who proceeded to enlighten the questioner with recently acquired shallow knowledge essential for survival in his circle. He spewed life-science mumbo and statistical-inference jumbo before expounding on the laws of conditional probability. “So, you see … I’ll be ok. I have to be. The odds are in my favor. It’s only fair, don’t you think?” he posited. Two weeks later the healthy businessman was back for more mangoes. Russian roulette time, again. Same circus. Same mayhem. No mask. No fear. The man elbowed his way past fellow human beings in order to get to front of the line for his mangoes. Didn’t notice the Gods of Statistical Anomalies smiling sarcastically from a nearby rooftop. Picked up the (symbolic) gun. Spun the cylinder. Took his chance. Smiled, then left the gun and took the almost-ripe Alphonso mangoes home. They’d be ready to eat in a few days. The loss of taste, the shortness of breath, and the high fever came visiting days later, one after the other, just as the alphonso ripened. I believe his family and other onlookers watched helplessly as they stretchered him into the ambulance. He appeared to be mumbling. What’s he trying to say, a masked urchin boy at the scene asked another. “I don’t know, I can’t hear him clearly thru his mask. Sounds like…It’s not fair…it’s just not fair.”

Whether this story actually transpired is left for you to decide. Fair odds it did.

Stories about games of chance abound in the literary landscape. For me, none of those tales can match the short-story that appeared in The New Yorker over seventy years ago. When it was published, it shook up its readership like nothing ever had or (likely) since has; shaken enough to prompt one reader to remark, “I will never buy The New Yorker again.” 

Go ahead. Read it. Feel free to leave a comment.

CLICK HERE FOR A SHORT STORY YOU’LL BE THINKING ABOUT LONG AFTER READING IT

Until we meet again, this is Storyteller Vish saying,

Don’t take chances. Go get vaccinated if you still haven’t done so.  Stay Safe.

Thanks for reading.