//------------------------------//
// A game of chance 
// Story: Risk after risk. 
// by zman123 
//------------------------------//

"It's about pushing ourselves in the right direction and not rushing into things recklessly."

These were the words that my daddy would try to teach me time and time again when I was younger. He'd insist I repeat this sentence again every morning when I came down for breakfast, and again before I climbed the creaky wooden staircase to my bedroom to retire for the night.

It became my mantra. The one sentence I would be able to recite fluently even after memory diseases like dementia and amnesia caught up with me, or I cracked my skull so badly that I was rushed to the emergency room, to spend what little time I would have left staring blankly into space, mumbling mostly incoherent gibberish no one understood. Not that any of those scenarios would be unlikely to happen in the near future, in the line of work I had taken up for some twisted reason even I couldn't explain to you, since even I never fully understood why.

Now some people would ask me, is your daddy a good man? And I'd say definitely. Even if we never spend as much time together now as we once got to. And even if a lot of people think of my daddy as a meanie, I wouldn't have asked for a better daddy if the decision was handed to me on the shiniest silver platter.

My daddy was a patient, gentle man. He was never loud or violent with me ,but as kind and caring as a daddy should have been. He tried his very best to teach me what he thought was important for me to know, and what to him was the right thing to do. And I couldn't have asked for a better teacher than him. What more could any son or daughter ask for?

To a lot of people who didn't know him the way I did though, they would say my father, um daddy, was a stupid guy. Even the neighbors would sometimes poke fun at how beyond his own name, dad could barely write and had trouble reading even the simplest texts.

But to me at least, he was a prodigy, a hidden genius whose skills an uncaring world failed to appreciate. A boy from our neighborhood once came to ask him what an IBM was. "It's for my homework" he claimed "and if I can't correctly define what IBM's are, the teacher will slap another demerit onto my report.".

My father shook his head sadly. "Well for a start, you've missed a very important C between the I and the B" he tried to explain, scratching his head thoughtfully "It should be ICBM.". The boy got a good laugh out of that, but ultimately still returned home the next day with a F minus on a report card after as a last resort he took my dad's advice and put that an ICBM was a highly lethal explosive device that could be launched over long distances to cause catastrophic damage to entire cities.

Another time, a girl who happened to be cycling past came up to daddy to ask what AC was. "My daddy told me it cools things down when it gets hot, but because I don't know what it is or how it works, I always have to sleep very uncomfortably in the summer when the sun stays up all night. Please can you tell me how to use AC mister, my daddy told me not to rely on him for everything and to find out myself. That's why I'm asking you."

An inquiry into what I now knew was simply an air conditioner, and how to operate a simple piece of mechanical equipment often used in cars and buildings to prevent overheating and to get some air when it got stuffy, became a lecture into what was one of the most commonly used killing devices in modern military forces and what would later become a treasure more valuable than all the gold and jewels in the world to me. The AK. A thing you'd rarely see carried in the hands of anyone who didn't also have a badge on their camo-patterned fatigues, and a tightly fitted helmet.

He explained to the puzzled girl, and his equally as confused daughter (who by then was even more brainless and scatter brained than now) that the AK was a semi automatic rifle that kept a great balance between accuracy and rate of fire. He went on further to explain that a lot of people got the K in AK mixed up with a C for AC, and that it was a mistake that had sent many misinformed soldiers to their death when they brought the wrong thing to the battlefield.

"I as a rule, generally don't like Russian people or things very much" sighed my father, allowing himself to be judgmental and reflective for a moment "But the Russian man who built the AK is one man I know I'd be good friends with if I got to meet him. He really outdid himself on the day he invented the AK, and we really should show him more respect."

He sighed once more, though this time not as sadly. "Typical" he remarked "All you kids care about nowadays is who built the light bulb or who invented cars and the internet. when none of those things will save you when that murderer with a knife in his hand springs at you to stab the life from you. Take my word, the AK is a handy, life saving thing to have. Don't leave home without one, or something similar."

The girl shook her head, it was clear that none of these things meant anything to her except to show that my daddy was out of whack with reality, and that he was not a man worth talking to since anything you said to him would be misunderstood. So she thanked him for the story and left, clearly bitter that he had not told her the things she wanted to know.

Though to be fair to him, blowing the windows open with a shot or two would let a bit of oxygen and cool air into the room that was clearly only hot because of lack of ventilation with the outside air.

Every moment I spent with dad was a moment that seared into my memory for eternity like a photograph taped into a photo album. I treasured each second I had with that lovely man like a bar of solid gold. Not that I didn't love my dear mom, who insisted I address her mommy much to my delight since the titles father and mother really didn't do two special grown ups the justice they deserved. It would be an insult, just as bad as if I swore out loud at them while sticking out my tongue. But time with my daddy was precious, since while most dad's could reassure their crying children who were worried about what life without their parent's would be like, that they had ages and ages left to spend together since it was a well known fact that being thrown into a wooden box that was then buried in a hole in the ground, was the only possible event that could separate a parent that truly loved their children the way mine loved me.

For my daddy though, it was a thing that could happen at a moment's notice, he explained. He did not have the luxury of being quite at ease as long as his skin hadn't wrinkled and his hair hadn't whitened. And everyone knew how unfair, and inhuman it was for a relative, especially a parent to be put into that wooden box when his skin hadn't wrinkled, his hair hadn't whitened and his hands gripped without a tremble. For daddy, it was just another game of roulette he would have to play and play, with nothing but a friendly pat on the head along with a small bag of money if he won.

A small bag of money that even a janitor wouldn't envy, I'm sure. But it put food on the table, and a roof over our heads, and so he didn't complain. He even told me each time he could spare a visit to our house, not to cry if he never came back.

But against all the odds, he would return each scheduled day he said he would return. Sometimes with a stagger in his step, sometimes with a bandage in his arm or leg, but he'd always be back at the promised time.

"It was nothing" he would joke, but my mom and I would turn to each other as we both knew that what daddy really meant to say was "the horrors, the horrors." and that it was only his care for us that stopped him from telling the truth.

We shared good times together. Sometimes he took me to the playground, and sometimes we'd sit by the fireplace while mom read us a story.

I loved the feel of his warm embrace as he took me in his arms, and kissed me gently on his cheek. Telling me just how much he valued his little Lightning and how even though he couldn't always be there for her like he hoped, he would do his best to always live on in her memories.

Those memories stayed with me in my heart, long after I left my home knowing I'd never be able to return even if I somehow lived to a hundred and some more.

For me to begin to recite some of the joyous moments, would be for tears to flood from my eyes, and for me to begin to convulse and tremble uncontrollably with long sobs as my friends around me began to shake their heads and shame me for being weak and soft.

And by the time I came to myself, and pulled it back together, an entire day might have passed, and I would have wasted it trying to dwell on a time that had long since been set in stone, and had long passed.

"Don't look back and keep moving forward." was another mantra I made a vow to follow over the years, though it wasn't from my daddy that I learned that one.

But as with all gambles, whether it was slots, blackjack or whatever it was you played, you just couldn't win them all.

And the one loss for my daddy, was an even bigger loss for me.

For most people who gambled, when they lost their bets that they had made, they could laugh it off and promise to do better the next time.

For my daddy and the bet he made, there was no next time. And he had paid for his loss with a very high price and forced me and mom to pay what seemed to us, to be an even higher one.

It wasn't a price we would be able to pay off even if we worked for 10 years nonstop, without stopping to eat or sleep. It wasn't a price we'd be able to front even if by some stroke of luck we won first place in the lottery one day.

It wasn't a price we'd be able to pay off at all.