The Thing About Luck

During her first few months of, admittedly, rather frictional adjustment to Red Ivy University, Clover Aranzamendi was finally able to confirm that everyone had the same strange quirk—they spoke twice at the same time.

Really, there wasn’t any evidence more compelling than what Clover could observe here in the Arts building’s second-floor hallway, which, by the way, was a totally warm and friendly space for students waiting for their delightful and definitely well-loved 7:30am philosophy class, with its old, drab gravel-grey concrete walls, adorned all over with white chips and brown blemishes of all shapes and sizes that, if you looked hard enough, could vaguely resemble your favorite animals, or whatever else people enjoyed using their pareidolia on. Personally, she’d been looking for the Lucky Charms marshmallow shapes, of which she’d only found the horseshoe, the heart, and the (presumably) red balloon. Though, she had to go spot them again every time, as she wasn’t allowed a phone to take pictures of them—

Oh, damn it, she was getting sidetracked again.

The voices.

Yes, the voices.

The voices bounced and flew against those marshmallow-patterned walls, paying homage to the DVD icon, and somehow, they would all siphon back into Clover’s ears. There were twenty-three students apart from herself (she’d never noticed she knew the number) leaning against the concrete, tiredly bumping their heads on the blemishes, and sitting on the washed-out green floor tiles where a sign explicitly said you couldn’t, but that’s not exactly what Clover heard. You see, what she’d discovered is that people had not one, not three, but two voices that, most of the time, appeared together, but said different things. So in reality, what Clover heard were roughly forty-six voices, all tangling and bundling together in the too-cold AC air. The wall even trembled against her back, like it was ready to launch her towards the classroom door in front of her.

Example—The pale short dude on her right, Diego, she thought.

“Yeah, last night,” Diego said to the other girl beside him between bites of his granola bar, “I just read three of the chapters and went to bed. Halfway there, so not too bad, right?”

But snorkeling beneath that first voice, Clover could make out the second: “Up till three…up till three,” it said, or at least, that’s what it sounded like. The second voice was typically as loud as the first, but it was muffled and distorted, as if it was peaking a microphone, causing little shrills of feedback. Clover had never been totally sure of what a second voice had said, so whether it ever said anything of value was beyond her. But still, she could hear them—all of them, all the time.

She hadn’t been sure what it was like in a crowd before she enrolled in Red Ivy. Back then, it didn’t bother her as much, since the only other people she grew up around, including her own family, had a rather quiet second voice. But it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought of it much before that either—Dr. Plaza had examined her on that at least thrice, if she was remembering correctly. She would be blindfolded right there in his office, and he would read her some boring essay about fungal infections on pomegranates or something in his usual monotonous voice, or worse, a lady would come over to recite really obscure Wikipedia articles you would only get with the randomizer. But it was because of the vapidity of those readings that Clover could focus on that second voice. It would still be muffled, and in this case, quiet, but she could actually make out words, sometimes even full sentences. She figured that was the whole point, but Dr. Plaza wasn’t very good with answers—he would explain it was one of her main symptoms and he just wanted to know how it behaved.

Why he got her enrolled here if she was so unstable, she would never understand, though he’d left her a little something, of course—Clover fidgeted a bit with the pill bottle in her jacket pocket, rattling like teeth. He’d ask about it at the end of the day. But still, she was here now, so who was she to complain? She got to be apart from her parents for a while. From Dr. Plaza himself, even. That was always nice.

But in moments like these, planted like a little mushroom on the walls of this academic fallout bunker, stalked by dozens of those garbled human noises, avoiding anyone’s eyes, she remembered she didn’t really belong anywhere. Not back in Dr. Plaza’s lab, not in her parents’ house, not in the bunker that all the weird people had their meetings in. Someone could turn their head to her, like Diego did now, but veiled over his round features was the rugged face of Dr. Plaza. Her heartbeat jolted, she looked away. That’s when Clover admitted to herself it wasn’t the walls trembling—it was her, partly because they turned up the AC too cold, yeah, but also because something was turned up too cold inside her. Like she was born wrong. Defective, built incorrectly. She’d always noticed, but she just didn’t know what it was.

That’s why she’d skipped the dose today. If there was something she’d always take from Dr. Plaza’s teachings was that the brain was a powerfully intentional tool—everything it did, it did for a reason, and if Clover’s brain fabricated voices for her to hear, maybe it had something to tell her, something nobody else would be able to. And that’s exactly why she needed to scram.

Clover would’ve started her attempt already if it wasn't for her. She thugged out the noise and searched, and sure enough, there she was, huddled over at the far right of the door—Samira. Though she appeared occupied with her own business—large silver headphones over the black cyclone-like mass she called her hair—Clover would catch her sneaking glances once in a while, glances that, with the ramp-like edges of her jaw, didn’t seem like they were trying to say “Hiiiii” with a silly string of emoticons. Not even without the emoticons.

Maybe she was being a bit unfair, but that wasn’t at all how she’d remembered her. Samira had always been quiet, but she’d never been like…that. After all their parents, hidden behind their sheep and rabbit masks, stepped through the big red door, Samira was the only kid who’d play with her. She’d always bring a deck of cards and teach Clover a new game every time. It started with standard ones like Rummy, Go Fish, and Blitz, but then she started pulling out the niche ones like Mao, Karma, and…Egyptian Ratscrew? What a name. But no matter how confusing they got, Samira had always been patient with her, kindly repeating the rules every time it was necessary, with the obvious exception of Mao, though she would sometimes cave in with that one too.

But shortly after she taught her to play Escoba around her twelfth birthday, Samira vanished.

Well, maybe vanished was the wrong word. Clover had always known where she’d gone—school. A real school, with real teachers, and real pencils, and real children. Children smarter, more fun, and much less ill than whatever Clover was. Honestly, she couldn’t even blame her for abandoning her in those stark-white labs and offices, scented with fake “new” smell, devoid of voices, neither the first nor second. It sounded like a pretty good deal, honestly.

Who knew what happened during those years that made Samira look like that. But the thing is, it was suspicious, very suspicious, that she’d turn up again now, after so many years, in the same building, in the same hallway, in the exact same class. If she somehow wasn’t a spy, Clover had no idea what to think. Samira’s mom was the director of some research whatever here at Red Ivy, and Clover had seen her in all the meetings—though under a lion mask—and she knew for sure that she and Dr. Plaza were somehow connected. Wasn’t too far-fetched, was it?

Then, movement.

The students around her lazily picked themselves up as the classroom door opened, releasing its usual pumpkin spice stench, and they trudged along towards the entrance of demise. Samira was one of the last to stand up, so she was at the end of the line.

This was Clover’s chance.

Without a second glance, Clover left the decrepit comfort of the wall and bolted to her left, nearly tripping as she barreled through the hallway, the Lucky Charms marshmallows a blur around her. It was perfect—it was empty, and she could slam her way through the doors, her backpack bumping hollowly against them. The voices slowly faded, tethered by the ghost of Socrates holding the classroom hostage.

Clover soon found herself in the lobby which, nowadays, meant just two ripped couches inside a barely wider, vaguely circular area, where a few blood-colored posters for Red Ivy’s pickleball team tried and failed to hide the similarly bruised walls. But most importantly, the elevator—its doors, while still their steely silver, were scratched and smudged, and never cleaned apparently.

Clover pressed the down button.

It didn’t light up.

It had always been like this. Wait up. Clover pressed it again.

Coquí coquí.

“Goddamn it,” Clover cursed under her breath as she tapped—no, punched—the button over and over again. “Why do you gotta do this now?”

“There’s a little trick to it.”

Clover slowly turned and almost bounced right through the elevator shaft—it was Samira.

Samira stared from a few inches below, thick lips contorted into a frown, like they hadn’t said a word. Her headphones rested over her neck now, revealing the same silver hoop earrings she always wore, hidden by the waterfall of black pouring over her face. That’s right—she just stared, like the ghost that stared at an action hero from across the subway platform, but would disappear once the train had passed. She reeked of cigarettes too. Didn’t surprise her.

Clover’s eyes darted to her blue sneakers. She trembled. Words, Clover, words. “Yessss, there…has…to be a trick, yeah.”

Samira raised an eyebrow. “Are you…okay?”

Clover winced—it was Samira’s second voice. It was screaming. She resisted the urge to cover her ears.

“You just…seem strange, that’s all,” Samira continued. “I dunno, figured I should…check on you, you know?”

Clover could only chuckle, but the kind of chuckle you get when you stare at someone’s big dark eyes for too long and it feels like they’re squeezing your heart at a rate faster than it can handle.

Samira looked over to the elevator button, Clover’s dirty finger still on it, then looked back at Clover. In the eyes. “Where the hell are you going?”

She almost wanted to reply to the scream instead, but the first thing Clover thought blurted out of her. “To…uh…find all the marshmallows. The…rest of them, yeah!”

Samira tilted her head. “The…marshmallows?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Clover said. “You know…hourglass and rainbows, and tasty red balloons?”

'What the fuck' was written all over Samira’s face, she didn’t have to say it.

“Those kids!” Clover continued, letting her deranged mind steer her. “They always fail to get them! Lucky the leprechaun, he…he always stops them! Not me, no, nuh-uh. I’ll, uh, I’ll get those marshmallows, I will. I’m the real lucky one. I’ll…uh, I’ll chop his head off and take his place and I’ll…guard the marshmallows myself then, yeah!”

“Okay, I see, ” Samira said, a droplet of concern in her voice, clearly not taking in the Lucky Charms lore. “Are you still getting the, um…check-ups?”

“Yep, yep,” Clover said through shaking lips. And teeth. “All good. Everything good. No screaming on the walls, no, ma’m.”

Samira stared for another few seconds, though it felt like hours—her brown pupils drove a needle into Clover’s, pointed, intent. Then, Samira tapped the down button herself, and the trapped air of the elevator exhaled against Clover’s back. “Go on, do whatever. And I know this is strange but like…you can still talk to me if you feel weird or anything. Just wanted…to let you know, that’s all.”

And with that, Samira disappeared back into the apocalyptic hallway, looking to be taken hostage, too, by the vengeful phantom of Socrates.

Well, at least she knew who to keep avoiding.

Clover slipped into the elevator just before it closed, and among the buttons that were more typewriter-like than anything, she tapped on G, and the elevator eventually opened into the outside world.

The sun. The glorious sun, that shone openly, with no mine shaft corridors to tell it no. From said mine shaft corridor, you wouldn’t be able to tell how genuinely pretty the campus was—palms lined the yellow-ish central pathway, surrounded by those neat cubic bushes with the silky yellow flowers. The two arms of the building that hugged the courtyard would convince you the stories about its insides were pure gossip. They were draped in these dark and light vines, twisting around each other until they hung just above the ground, where more of the bushes caught them as they fell. It was perfectly warm, and while she could smell the subtle notes of cigarettes in the air, it was otherwise crisp and, surprisingly, didn’t smell half bad. And the voices—there weren’t that many other students out and about at this hour, so the voices would blend with the morning complaints of grackles and whatever other bird was bored enough to watch depressed students chugging along. The contrast was…weird, but it was college all right, and in this moment, it felt nice.

Clover checked her watch. 7:43. She could still catch the trolley.

If she ran.

And well, that’s what she did. She let her feet carry her, shaped by the habit, pulling her along the string of palms such that, if a coconut were to fall, it would narrowly miss her head in the coolest way possible.

She left the embrace of the Arts building, faced with the sidewalk, but also the road, probably more chipped than the Arts’s walls. On the other side though, another long building, the Physics building, greeted her with the bright orange curtains over its windows. She’d never visited it, but she never would. Not after this.

The trolley screeched as it pulled up—it was sorta small, white, stained in the pure red iconography of Red Ivy, particularly its eagle logo, and its vines. She could only stare at it for almost a minute. Shiny. Had she ever gotten this far?

Freedom, though. Freedom from this place, freedom from all places. Or at least, that’s how she wanted to think about it.

Finally, Clover gathered the valor to step in. She still trembled, even in the toasty early-morning glare, but it was to be expected. It happened every time. It was like cooking spaghetti without charring it a little—totally paradoxical. Though, she never really thought about what she’d do afterwards. Maybe rent a trailer in Cabo Rojo, live the surfer life? Steal a boat? Hijack a hot-air balloon from Jajuya? The options were limitless, how could she ever decide?

But maybe she’d have to decide on the way—first she needed to get a move on. Motivated like she’d never been, Clover stepped foot inside the trolley, and it felt like heaven under her sneakers, the trolley purring like a cat. With a big smile, she looked up to the chauffeur and…

Clover froze. That wasn’t the chauffeur.

That wasn’t the chauffeur.

That wasn’t the chauffeur.

Clover hurled herself from the trolley, and she ran. She ran as fast as she could. This time, it wasn’t her feet—it was something in her head. It was yanking her along, like a string was stuck inside the fissures of her brain and someone was trying to pull it out. Would her heart keep up? Or would she be too slow, like she always was?

Didn’t matter. Clover kept running. And running. And running. It didn’t matter where she ended up, it didn’t mat–

Clover crashed into a door. A wooden door, surrounded by nothing but chipped, blemished, gravel-gray walls that enveloped everything.

She was back in the hallway.

“Shit, not again,” Clover cursed, trying to rub the beating pangs off her face—she was pretty sure her nose was bleeding, too. “Why, at the stupidest of times…”

Someone quickly passed by her, blasting a small wave of cold AC air…against her arm? She realized he’d taken off her jacket at some point during all that. She looked down and, indeed, her jacket was tied around her waist. That meant…

Clover twisted her arms in front of her, diligently searching every nook and cranny of her light copper skin aaaaaaand…there it was.

“I had a feelin wed blck out,” the marker message on her tricep read in grammar that would murder Aunt Josephine, “so I wrote u this We almost made it this time!! Just a lil more, well get there, ye.”

Clover groaned. Why didn’t she ever give herself any details? What the hell did she mean, “just a little more”? What was that supposed to communicate?

Holy shit, she hated Blackout Clover so much.

Against her better judgement, Clover observed her arms for just a bit more. She could almost see them, in the faintest of black inks, the other marker messages she’d left herself in the last few months—“Better this time yippee wahoo,” “Caught right away, this ones on u lol”, “Girl stop trying this route it sucks”, “Bitch did u not see it before you left pay attention next time jeez.” Those were only some. She could make out more, but she was so sick of them. All her failures faded on her arms, a place she’d always have to see and not help but read some of them…to remind her that, deep down, she knew it was pointless. They had people everywhere. Dr. Plaza didn’t put her in here without supervision. She knew that…but still.

Maybe she’d be lucky this time…that’s what she always told herself. Every single time, as the failures racked up, maybe she’d be lucky. The odds would somehow change over time, and eventually, they’d land on that ninety percent. Eighty-five percent. Eighty-three percent. Hell, with fifty percent she’d be happy. But that was luck. Nothing but raw luck.

The thing about luck was that, even if you could have full control over it, you would still, in a way, not really control it. It wasn’t a thing you could feel with your fingers, or taste with your tongue. It wasn’t even a measurement. Luck, ironically, didn’t really care about the outcome.

As far as Clover was concerned, there were two types of lucky outcomes—the one where you get what you want, and the one you get what you truly need. Clover lacked the luck for the first one, and she hoped to God or whoever was listening that she’d also been lacking it for that second one. She knew this wasn’t what she needed. It just couldn’t be.

Clover faced the door she’d just crashed into. She didn’t even leave a dent, and it still hurt. Maybe that was just her life in a nutshell—trying to beat the shit out of the machine, but starting to beat the shit out of herself before realizing she wasn’t doing any damage in the first place.

But eh, who cares? Herself?

No, she could never. Nothing mattered. She would just try again tomorrow.

Clover jiggled a pill into her hand, swallowed it whole, and opened the door to the classroom, hoping nobody would connect the thud on the door with the stream of blood that had just reached her lip.