Alex Gore - The Cube

“But he only shot Anna and you saved yourself, Alan.”

Alan was deadly pale now and glanced at Hans with desperate eyes, but he went on:

“There’s no such thing as ‘bad luck’, Alan. You were just not suited for this job. Eventually your contacts could not help and you were expelled. That’s it.”

“Mind your own business, Hans. It was all about luck. Or rather the lack of it.”

“Luck was made up by losers like you, so they could excuse their own failure”, Hans concluded.

“Go to hell with your dumb theories”, Alan said, making an obscene gesture and frowning.

“What kind of theory is that, Hans?” Marcela asked cautiously. She would like to think that Alan was right and that was nonsense. She had often wondered if she was not trying to justify her problems and having no family with lack of luck.

“The ‘Theory of Bad Luck’ also called ‘Theory of Purple Stockings’ has been known since the end of the past century. It was first made public by one Lord Dunwell. The first premise of this theory is that anything which might happen, really happens, in other words, everything is possible.”

“How so?” Michael asked.

“Well, according to quantum physics there are infinite number of universes with infinite number of versions of our existence.”

“Is there a universe in which I’m married to Angelina Jolie?” Michael asked, smiling dreamily.

“Yes, but also there is one in which you are a gay in Massachusetts Central Correctional Institution.”

Michael’s smile disappeared instantly.

“Yes, there is also a parallel universe in which I am married to Marcela and we have three kids, we live in a small village in Peru, growing potatoes and llamas, she is half-literate fat person with a huge wart on her nose, while I have blond curls and have never gone to school.”

Marcela showed her perfect white teeth in a broad and sincere smile.

“So, if we assume that each probability is materialized somewhere in some world, we are sure that absolutely all versions of events are possible”, Hans went on. “Don’t you think?”

The rest in the group just nodded, listening with interest. Only Alan sat frowning and not uttering a sound.

“Imagine two boys. The first one is really fortunate, luck has never left him, whatever he does. We’ll call him ‘Lucky’. The second boy is the most unfortunate person in the universe, he never had any luck at all – if something bad could happen to him, it always did. Let’s call him ‘Unlucky’.”

“You came up with super original names, Hans, I would have never thought of them”, Michael giggled, but it was obvious that he was absorbed in the subject.

“The names are arbitrary.” Hans rarely abandoned the serious tone when talking about mathematics. “So, Lucky is walking in the street and the first thing that happens to him is he finds a lottery ticket, winning 1 million dollars. He is walking on all alone. Around the corner he meets a beautiful girl, the woman of his life, the one from his wildest dreams.”

“Wow, Hans, it’s getting really interesting! Will there be sex on quantum physics level?” Michael went on joking, being in excellent mood after the vodkas.

“The neighborhood sucks, but the weather is fine, warm and sunny, and the boy is dressed in denim shorts, purple socks and sports shoes.”

“Hans, you are killing me, bro, who wears purple socks?”

“I don’t know, I myself don’t possess such, but that’s how Lord Dunwell formulated it. I guess it is some kind of metaphor or a British snobbish whim. You know their freaky way of talking.”

Marcela just nodded amused.

“And so, the girl of his dreams is attacked by three gangsters, who, luckily have phobia of purple socks. All three of them!”

“Oh, fuck, that’s too much now!” Michael laughed so hard, he barely balanced on his chair.

“That’s just it, too many quite improbable facts are piled up. But don’t forget hat Lucky is the luckiest person alive.”

“Well, he’ll need all the luck with these purple socks.”

“The attackers see his socks and run away, leaving the girl alone. She herself has a very rare kind of vison anomaly, seeing all colors except for the purple.”

Michael was totally at a loss now how this story might end.

“Naturally, you guess that the girl instantly falls in love with the hero who has saved her and after a week the two of them get married. The story ends in a fairy tale style: they have fine healthy children and live happily ever after…”

“A pathetic and, I must admit, a dumb story”, Alan said, coming out of his dark silence.

“Now imagine the second boy, the most unfortunate person in the universe, Unlucky. He is walking in the street, but instead of finding a winning lottery ticket, he steps in dove’s excrement.”

“Hans, you mean his foot is covered in fucking shit… Ha-haha!”, Michael was genuinely amused.

“Something like that”, Hans said, a little taken aback, since his manners excluded street language. “He meets the same girl further on and again they are attacked. Besides needing new shoes, Unlucky has the misfortune to meet thugs, who all have a common phobia, only not of purple, but of green. Since the boy does not wear anything green, he is badly beaten and the girl is robbed. They do not fall in love, never get married and the story does not have a happy ending.”

“Another pathetically dumb story with a dumb ending”, Alan noted, not yet discouraged that he might get his revenge. However, Hans continued unperturbed:

“There is a catch in the story though. Think that if the poor boy did not marry and did not have children, respectively did not live a happy life, but spent it in illness, leaving no offspring, while the other boy reproduced, his children had children of their own and all lived till very old age as a big family, surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

“Which means that lucky people live longer and are more prone to leave offspring than unlucky ones”, Michael concluded, getting more serious now.

“That is correct and if we follow the logic of statistics and mathematics, which is undeniable”, said Hans, proudly thrusting forward his chest, “in an infinite sequence of time and events the unlucky ones will gradually fall out and disappear and the lucky ones will prevail…”

“…which would mean that all who are left in the world are exceptionally lucky and ‘bad luck’ just does not exist anymore…”

“And that totally excludes any theories of luck, be it good or bad”. Hans sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and glanced at the group victoriously.

Alan sank again in his sulky silence. Marcela whispered in Michael’s ear:

“What do you think connects the professor with the failure of Alan?”

“They hate each other because of that, now I see.”

“I remember the story from TV, total tragedy. However, I don’t recall a fired journalist.”

“I remember the hero reporter who tried to save a kidnapped child, but fucked up…”

“But what does it have to do with Hans?”

“You, women seem to absorb just the drama from TV and facts escape you.”

“Mikey?”

“The Margaret in question is Hans’s ex-wife – Michael told her in a low voice. – The little girl was her niece.”

To Base ‘Object 111-13X’:

Any activity is prohibited in the region of the Eastern Libyan desert, especially in its Egyptian part. The same is valid for topsecret climatic experiments and meteorological explorations.

At all atmospheric levels.

Till further notice.

Unidentified sound source. Detected waves from the supersonic and infrasound specter.