fiction (sorta): one in six.

I manage to bum a cigarette offa someone with little in the way of drama or bluster, and holding my whiskey sour I step out onto the back patio of the half-empty bar, freezing cold, blowing out smoke without even lighting up. It's snowing so hard I can barely see the ball field two blocks away and even if someone had come through the back door the new flakes would cover their footprints in an instant with nary a hint there was ever anything soiling the perfect glimmering surface.

Everything remains intact.

There's a speaker hooked up outside that pumps out the sound of the shitty bar band playing just behind the door and, no kidding, just as I get acclimated to the cold and start to think that it's a pretty night they reroute their set into covers and start to play my favorite song.

I take a .38 snub nose police special out of my pocket and place my drink on a railing, loading in a single hollow-point bullet and spinning the chamber.

I check my watch and I have about thirty seconds 'til midnight, so I whistle along to my favorite song for a bit, then I step out into the snow so that I won't make a mess on the bar and I put the gun to my temple and I pull the trigger.

Everything remains intact.

I pull the trigger again.