Or floating ones.

He chuckled at that thought as he hi-fived around the group, even repeating the line to them.

“Check the floating balls on that guy.”

“Safety cable looks too thin even with floating balls,” someone added. They’d all speculated on the amount of danger money you got paid to do that stuff and whether using the same skill for a break-and-enter might prove more profitable.

Forty-five minutes later after enjoying himself just shooting the breeze, his stomach lurched. Not your normal after-meal growl but a you’d-better-get-to-the-can-quick, thick gurgle.

The lucky break for Alan was that his stomach gave him enough warning. He was within yards of the exit, but he didn’t have long. He took off at a trot, wincing at the growing pain.

Three more steps and he would have made it too, and his blue-sky future life with new blood, no cancer would have been his to enjoy.

Timing’s a bitch though. A second here, an inch there, and your destiny is really just bullshit sliding-door moments.

He heard a shout, but he wasn’t sure of the words or their meaning and even if they were directed at him.

“Hey” or “Waay” or “Waa.” Something like that.

Not a great warning if that’s what Floating Balls intended. Even if the word was clear and he had time to decipher its meaning as move out of the way, he wasn’t Usain Bolt.

Angles were the issue in this case. Throw a screwdriver at someone and unless you hit their eye, the damage is at most a scratch or a bruise. Drop a screwdriver from four levels and it lands point side into someone, well that’s a different result altogether.

Said screwdriver becomes a missile. Even then you’d be fine if the missile hit any part of your body except your head. Or in Alan’s case his chest.

The little tool pierced his heart, and he was dead before you could say bullshit. Although Alan managed to get the “bull” part out, the rest of the word remained lost forever on his lips.

As he descended into the darkness of the nether world between life and death, he managed one last thought.

What happened to my luck?

12

One week later after William read the last page of Orelia’s book, he sat back and shook his head. Prior to this, he imagined he’d call her with an excuse of why he couldn’t help her with the manuscript. He thought that like most writers, her first project would need a lot of work.

When he called her though it wasn’t to say those words but instead to heap her with praise.

Effusive praise.

Her book, while raw, was original and engrossing, and he’d finished reading the whole thing in two sittings. With a little polishing, the book was certainly publishable. And with the right marketing who knows, she might have a best seller on her hands. Mind you, luck played a huge part, so she’d need to pray to the publishing gods.