Bob the Gambler

Possession exists, in the soul, in the mind, submerging impulse into a ever enveloping tide of heavy water that consumes, drowns, and ultimately sweeps the evidence away in rushing thrusts of downhill river gravitational pull. Alongside a row of glass screen video poker machines, Bob practices his high end martial arts one inch punch on a few of the more uncooperative computers underneath the Nintendo like graphics facade image of blackjack game. Another 300 dollar series of 20 dollar bills is rapidly consumed by the apparatus, continously starving for more paper currency, tonight this machine contains very little desire to offer Bob the Gambler any sort of satisfactory return on his initial investment which at the time of my third beer has escalated to the level of degenerate, desperate, and cocksucking for crack in the valley of no return.

Bob works as a bartender in his off hours, a wage that is no more than a guise for his registration into endentured servitude. A fine trade so many others in Las Vegas share, those who in their off hours attempt to saite their gluttonous unconvinced lonliness with illusions of becoming genuine non actor poster children who get plastered all over the hall of winners in local casino video advertisements. Billboards with photos of an oversized check awash in decadent rows of zeros caressed by a needle pop infusion, love drug, distraction kick; this could be you, top dog, promoted to a world sans the 9 to 5 factory whistle blow, chocolate cakes and stripper thighs, money come be...... my friend.... forever, Believe!

A score immense enough to continue the feeding troughs a flowing in rushing current made of gold. Still, those day actors are nothing more than check presenters for the insane, puzzle piece conduits of a larger scam that only invites greater numbers to the lead beat down for misery. All those nice elderly people aside who are fed to the meatgrinder faster than they can cash those mythical cashiers slips; their remains an absolute opaque caustic presence. a being, entity which has no sense of morality, sympathy, or savior; a dark energy that will put the junk in the arm, the gun to a person's head, a once tiny whisper that now speaks like a bullhorn through a rock concert stadium PA system.

The voice is the only bit of dialouge left to interpet, all others have become various forms of gibberish comparable to a roadside evangilist speaking in tongues. Nothing left to do but for Bob the Gambler to go back into the till, pull out another 1000 dollars, while sharing a bit of information of how he is already down 3000 tonight. The gun might be easier, right in the mouth, pull the trigger, could be the only way out from under all the psychic weight pressing down on him like a soon to be demolished automobile in a car crusher. After feeding some more cash into the machine, Bob goes on a bit of a winning streak, pauses for a moment to serve some drinks, then walks back over and asks me if he should let ride the 500 hundred dollars he has already won in the last five minutes. "Sure, why not." I reply, anything to get him down the road faster. Coming out of this ride ahead does appear to be the end game for Bob; it is something more disfiguring, more grotesque, a subversing desire to play with a loaded weapon, firing into a completely darkened room. Shot after shot, dull thuds hit the floor, never ending ammunition, the lights come up in a hall of mirrors, all cracked, broken, and fragmented; his self reflections all lay on the ground, dead, where the only thing left to do is stare into the spider web lines of shattered glass as they form like viens around his face etching their permanance into his skin and eyes forever.