Kthaahthikha

It was her own method of avoidance, or of in some way deferring responsibility from herself and others to the universe at large. Of course, that was not the entire picture. Whilst doing so would establish that those dark and light things which happened in her life were to be blamed upon strange and unseen forces and mighty powers, it also created a situation where she herself was responsible for assuring the favour of these powers. Being confused by the issue, but well aware of the paradox of her comfort, Melissa nonetheless prayed every evening, secure in the knowledge that she was both entirely responsible for her successes, and able to attribute all of her failures to the uncaring, bitch-goddess nature of the universe.

Lying as she was exhausted upon the bed, watching the ceiling shimmer slightly from her fatigue, she contemplated the moral implications of what she had done with the young man who, some ten minutes earlier, had thrown-on his clothes and ran, reeking of sex, off to work. The heavy application of her powerfully-floral deodorants had done little to mask the scent, but he had been too hurried to take a shower – something for which Melissa was greatly to blame.

However, she did not like to think of it this way. It could hardly be said that the young man had been entirely innocent of the affair. But she was in a charitable mood, and obviously he had been also, and so both cursed that there was too little time and blamed everyone but themselves for the fact that he was going to be late, and that she was now considering going back to sleep.

The greater part of Melissa’s faith in the cosmic distribution of luck, could be attributed to the fact that she had failed to win the lottery so many times, only to suddenly do so. ‘Now obviously,’ she had said to her friends,’ I’d not won so many times. What were the odds of my winning now? It must have been something bigger. You know – there’s got to be more to this life than what is here on this earth.’

This logic, which appeared perfectly serviceable to both Melissa and several of her more spiritually-inclined friends, had not sat quite so well with Joseph. He had pointed-out on several occasions that, irregardless of what she might think, her chances had been exactly the same every time that she had gambled on three games. The fact that she had won three hundred thousand dollars was entirely random and (here he submitted to the specist and oddly-hypocritical reasoning that seemed to be his greatest weakness), if it had truly been a fact of divination, then why had she only won second division?

But say what he would, Joseph could not convince Melissa that she had been a benefactor of chance, and not luck. So he had given-up, which was probably for the best, as he didn’t really believe his own arguments anyway.

The bed, whilst warm, was not the best place to be. Melissa rose in her nightshirt and wandered into the shower, where she spent some twenty minutes under the flow of warm water, washing her hair and considering the amazing coincidence that the trees visible through the clear strip of glass above the window proper would occasionally, when the wind was right, look something like a face.

Melissa wasn’t really certain of what she was praying to. She had read a number of books, mostly about Ancient Egyptian myth cycles and neo-paganism, and had felt herself leaning towards the school of thought that states that a religion is always purer and more potent if very few people use it. This was somewhat ironic, as she rarely stooped to the level of mystical ludditism that her friend Crow was prone to – that strange idea that something is better for you if it was brewed from a garden weed, and that science was a malevolent entity bent upon the de-spiritualisation of the world and Modern Life. Crow was a strange woman, whose real name (at least, Melissa had always assumed that Crow was a pseudonym) no-one had ever been privy to.

After her shower, Melissa stripped the bedclothes and threw them in the hamper. She slipped-on her t-shirt and deep-blue denim jeans, hung her ankh around her neck and collected her oroboros key-chain, and left the house to go for a walk down to the supermarket, having discovered that there was no yoghurt left.

The supermarket was a low, broad building with a red aluminium roof and high glass windows along its front – much like most buildings of its kind. Though the staff changed constantly, there was one man who was always on the counter. His name-tag read Samuel, but not once that Melissa could remember had anyone called him by name. She herself would merely share a cursory ‘hello’, and perhaps exchange pleasantries about the weather. But, his name written there on his chest, she had never felt that it required bringing-up – and whether or not it was because she had felt this way, Samuel had never asked after her name for all the three years that she had been shopping there.

He smiled politely and slipped the yoghurt into the canvas bag, alongside a bottle of milk and a packet of chocolate biscuits with orange crème filling. The biscuits were cheap and terrible and horrible, and Melissa cursed the company for having lowered its standards. Once, the biscuits that the company had sold were delicious – easily able to compete with any other brand. But over time the quality had gradually declined as the company expanded, was bought by a foreign rival, re-emerged as a lone power after the rival’s collapse, purchased its former vassal, built several new factories, divided into three warring board-factions that eventually went their separate ways, and finally the biscuit-producing element of the corporation, finding itself in a strong financial position but with poor future prospects, had merged with a company that made motorcycle chassis. However, she did not buy a different brand of biscuit.

Samuel nodded goodbye and Melissa departed, wandering away back up the road through the shadows of paper-bark trees to her small flat, which she had bought from the former landlord for a reasonable amount.