She sits before the blinking bank of lights smooth tower above her, random chance she taps the button, circuits dance a magic beyond her hope of comprehension, but resonant exactly to her comprehension of hope. This is us before the world. It rears in its random glory, we tap blindly at the play button, which becomes an opportunity to consider transcience - there goes my $20 the futility of teaspoon measures of morality once you are there, you might as well play you might win, you as much as any other. You may suspect there are a cabal of humans who have designed this fix for what’s in it for them and who laugh all the way to the bank, as it has been for long imperial generations only the levers and images change. You may become downcast because you discern you are a fool to give them the money, the house always wins. But look at her. She sits there, small and glorious and having lost everything, like a refugee mother like a trafficked girl like every dumb peasant too low to even get the joke of which they are the butt. She remains. She gathers her futile coin and appeals to Something other than the false oracle in the machine when she says ‘Hit me again.’ No, I am not the One on Whom she calls, that would be blasphemy. I stand witness. She is the eternal loser, forever undefeated. I am her spirit animal.
Image courtesy LoggaWiggler on the Mighty Pixabay.com, and whoever the bird who allowed their image to be captured. Gratitude.