Unlucky by Gareth Vieira

 Johnny Smiles was the unluckiest person in Hope County.

How unlucky? So unlucky that the town council passed a bylaw restricting him to his home. A motion that passed unanimously. A sentence he accepted without protest.

Although Johnny was an older man, most folks considered him an overgrown child. He was brilliant, in the way all children in Hope County were brilliant—a lingering side effect of the Disaster, that tainted the drinking water and perfumed the air with long-forgotten toxins.

Adults, on the other hand, were profoundly stupid. That could be true everywhere, but in Hope County, it was scientifically undeniable. They babbled nonsense until nonsense became policy, and then congratulated each other for their “vision.” They wore the permanent expression of someone bracing for betrayal while pretending to be above it.

Johnny was different. He had a hunchback and a head tilted permanently to one side, as if the universe had smacked it crooked. His arms were long and shaggy, dragging across the pavement when he walked. A brass bell hung from his neck to warn of his approach.

When townspeople heard the bell, they either fled like a fire had caught their heels, limbs flailing wildly—or they froze in place, caught in some primal terror. A few even welcomed the curse, running at Johnny and shouting, “Take me, take me!” So overwhelming was the fear of his bad luck, it crushed reason flat.

It was Frank Adams, the Town Crier, who stood before the council and declared, “Johnny Smiles must be confined for the safety of Hope County.”

Then Madame Carto, the local psychic, approached the podium. She turned to the room, pointed two fingers at her eyes, then dragged them slowly across the crowd—everyone but Johnny, who sat sealed behind a glass partition.

“If we let Johnny Smiles walk among us,” she intoned, “his misfortune will rise like smoke and infect every living soul in Hope County.”

That prediction lodged like a thorn in the minds of her neighbours. Their hearts began to race, their thoughts stumbled through mental alleyways, tripping over every fear they had. The vote was unanimous. Johnny was quarantined for life. That was a year ago.

Now, Johnny spends his days in his living room, his middle finger lifting the slats of his blinds, peering out at a world that moves on without him. He chain-smokes Camel Straights and watches the neighbourhood boys play road hockey. They mimic their NHL heroes, pausing every few minutes for passing cars, dragging the net aside without complaint.

The goalies wear mismatched gear. Only one boy owns a full set of pads.

Girls skip rope and sing songs that worm into Johnny’s head. He hums them back in a voice so broken and tuneless it curdles the air. But he knows every word, singing long after the streetlights buzz on and the children disappear indoors.

In the evenings, he watches fathers standing on porches, smoking pipes and pondering mysteries known only to dads. He hears mothers through open windows, voices lifted in conversation, laughing, gossiping, living.

Johnny’s one consolation was his smokes. That and the view. Until the eagle landed.

It came from nowhere, screeching through the sky like a heat-seeking missile. It crashed through his living room window, beak-first. Glass exploded, and Johnny flew backward, cigarette still lit—shards embedded in his skin like the pins of a macabre voodoo doll.

An ambulance arrived. On the way to the hospital, it broke down on Lower Concession Road just as a thunderstorm cracked open overhead.

A man with a horse and buggy stopped to help, his face hidden behind a mask meant to repel bad luck. He tied Johnny’s stretcher to the cart and dragged him through the rain, hooves clopping a slow, mocking rhythm.

At the hospital, the power went out. The backup generator blew a fuse. The nurse printed the wrong wristband, and the surgeon confused his charts. Johnny had his left lung removed by mistake. When they stitched him up, they left the scalpel inside.

By the time he returned home, his house had been destroyed.

It had caught fire when the eagle crashed through the window. The lit cigarette had fallen into a pile of newspaper. The firetruck sent to extinguish it had overturned, colliding with the very same horse and buggy that had tried to save him.

Johnny stood in front of the smouldering wreckage. He pulled a half-burnt blanket from the debris, wrapped it around himself, and lay in the grass under the stars. He looked up at the night sky, eyes full of longing. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he spotted a falling star streak across the heavens.

He made a wish. But wishes and falling stars have no time for people like Johnny Smiles, and anyway, it wasn’t a star. It was a meteor.

It hurtled through the clouds, flaming and furious, and struck Johnny where he lay, burning him to ash in an instant. His ashes were scattered across Hope County, settling on rooftops and lawns, slipping down chimneys and through window cracks.

And Madame Carto, watching from her porch, whispered, “So it begins.”

Gareth Vieira

Image: A dirty ashtray full of cigarette ends from Pixabay.com