Strong Odds

Colleagues gather to play poker each Thursday night in the basement of a bar. Their haggard, expressionless faces hunched over in the smoke. But even a novice observer can sense the anxiety welling up in their eyes. The sudden scratching of the shoulder. Fingers rolling on the table's edge. After all, each man but one will lose almost the entirety of his week's earnings. Each man but one will stumble home, imagining scenarios of revenge and redemption. Every week, the same man takes home their wages. 7 years of playing and not one game has slipped through his fingers. He sits at the table with a wide grin during the entire game. The same grin no matter the status of his hand or the confidence projected by the others. He never folds. And even when he's lost all but a few dollars, his smile remains, and he stays in until the game is his again. The others have grown to accept the inevitability of losing, and yet they begin each game with the same crude jokes, the same excited gestures as if the outcome is and will always remain undecided.