Life's Lottery

by Kim Newman

  Throughout your third and last year at Marling’s, you put on speed. Competitors fall exhausted by the side of the track. Even the masters find it a strain to keep up with you.

  Sean Rye, Laraine’s boyfriend, asks you one evening why you have to keep running.

  You don’t know, but you just do.

  ‘You could always stop,’ Sean says, ‘take a rest, slow down. You’re missing a lot.’

  When you ask him to give examples of things you’re missing, Sean can’t come up with a decent list. But you still wonder if he doesn’t have a point.

  In your dreams, you run, enveloped by a pack of shadows, losing your footing. You wake up as if you’d really been running, heart pumping, drenched by panic sweat. Often when this happens, you have an itchy erection, sometimes with shameful discharge.

  You have known about sex since primary school, when you were given pamphlets explaining the biology. You wonder if Sean and Laraine have slept together, but doubt it. You think your parents have grown out of sex and Laraine has become a miniature Mum, always perfect and poised, dressed up as if for a party. It’s impossible to imagine her putting her tongue in Sean’s mouth. Sean works in your father’s bank; after his A Levels, he didn’t go to university. Mum and Dad like Sean. James says Sean is a pillock and teases Laraine in a disrespectful manner you would never countenance.

  Why should you pay attention to what a bank clerk says? Sean is one of your father’s slavey young men, with his diamond-shaped ties and wide lapels. How would he know what you’re missing?

  The whispers of ‘Slow down’ persist. You think they come from the shadows. They are a trick, a trap. If you slow, you will stumble and fall under the others. Feet will trample over you, imprinting dap-sole patterns on your back, forcing your face into the dirt.

  At night, in bed, you take hold of your penis and pump fast, faster, faster. Gully has told you how to toss off. You think of yourself running. Towards your future, your wife, your life. You get faster and faster. You leave the shadows behind.

  You have no shame about running.

  Each orgasm is a victory. For you, victories come fast and often.

  Sean envies you your future. You’ll leave him behind. That’s why he wants you to slow down: envy. Laraine breaks up with him and goes out with Graham Foulk, an ancient soul of twenty-two who plays the guitar with his own pop group. Mum and Dad like Graham less than Sean. He has long hair and a fuzz of beard and they’ve heard he is a bad lot, but Laraine says he’s sweet really. She starts dressing less like a Sindy doll, more like a flower child. You’re sure Laraine has slept with Graham, and is on the pill. He is one of a loose knot of aimless young adults who work sporadically, some on farms in the ring of villages outlying Sedgwater, and are known, even in the mid-1970s, as hippies.

  Graham makes you as uncomfortable as he does your parents. Since leaving school, he’s done nothing except practise with his group, who have never played anywhere for money, though they do appear at birthday parties and school discos. The summit of his ambition is to have his group, which goes through names the way you go through biros, play at the Glastonbury Festival. Sean, still at the bank, is scornful (perhaps understandably) of Graham and his bunch of wasters, which prompts Graham (quite amusingly) to name his group Graham and the Wasters for a few weeks.

  If you slow down, you might become like Graham. As soon as the tiniest fluff sprouts on your chin, you scratch yourself bloody with your father’s razor. You shave every day, scraping off dead skin and thin lather. You’ll never grow a beard, you vow.

  Stephen and Roger look forward to the new school. They are obsessed with the idea of girls. Gully Eastment has already decided to have sex with as many as possible. He claims that though Girls’ Grammar girls are tight, Hemphill slags will do anything.

  You keep quiet. Girls can wait. You have running to do. The pack are catching up. You have to avoid stitches, wrenched knees, pulled muscles. You notch up more victories.

  You read ahead in all your textbooks, getting to lessons before the masters, completing exercises as yet unset. Your parents are called into school and aren’t sure whether to be pleased with or worried about you. Mr Quinlan tells your father that if Marling’s were not being amalgamated into Ash Grove, he’d have you on an accelerated programme, with a view to preparing you in advance to take Oxford entrance exams in four years’ time. But, he shrugs, he is leaving when the school amalgamates, and they’ll have to watch you carefully so that you aren’t dragged down by the changes. Chimp Quinlan thinks comprehensive education is the work of the Devil.

  Your parents wonder about taking you out of Marling’s and sending you to a public school. They decide that, quite apart from the money, it’s too late. You’d never settle in another school. You ignore all this argument. Whatever the school, you must still run.

  Read 18, go to 19.

  13

  Sometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly — at least, while they’re awake — that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has actually happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me — sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.

  Go back to 29

  13

  Sometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly — at least, while they’re awake
— that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has actually happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me — sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.

  Go back to 40

  13

  Sometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly — at least, while they’re awake — that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has actually happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me — sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.

  Go back to 66

  13

  Sometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly — at least, while they’re awake — that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has actually happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me — sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.

  Go back to 94

  13

  Sometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly — at least, while they’re awake — that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has actually happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me — sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.

  Go back to 180

  13

  Sometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl
or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly — at least, while they’re awake — that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has actually happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me — sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.