The bar was dark and dreary, cold as a broken dream, and darker than the most inhospitable depths. It was one of those places that exists in every city, a building with a certain type of gravity, drawing in those who have lost hope or hope to lose it. It draws them in and enfolds them into it's dank blanket of cigarette smoke and alcohol, tempting with cups that are always half empty, and a silence broken only by the low rambling music coming from the beaten up jukebox in a corner by the bar.
The regulars seemed to always be there. Even when they are gone, off working or wandering the town or whatever it is they do when they are away, they always seem to be there, like the rest of the world was just borrowing them, they would come back, back to where they were meant to be.
Darrell was sitting in a corner by himself, quietly watching the others watch him. The ambiance had been broken earlier when a young man came in. It was obvious he did not belong, his shirt was too bright, his smile too ready. He would be gone within minutes and never come back.
He nursed the drink- half full of some liquor or other, he was beyond caring quite what as long as it got him drunk, when she walked in.
She belonged and did not belong all at once, this young woman. She was slim and dressed in an old coat two sizes too big for her, under that was a ragged t-shirt with the words 'God Saves' in faded letters across the front. Her jeans were as worn, with the knees and legs patched and repatched.
Despite that, she had fiery red hair and laughing green eyes, and she seemed all too alive to be here, too alive to be of the world. Hell, Darrell had seen her before, or at least he thought he had. The eyes at least were familiar. No one who'd seen those emerald eyes that seemed to draw you in and hold you could ever forget them. He had seen them before, walking amongst the winners and laughing the night away with them, then quietly moving amongst the losers, making herself known and encouraging them. Just a little longer, she might say, and then you'll have your chance.
But she looked so small even then, so far away. Now she was here and real, and she was looking his way, looking through him. She made her way through the crowd effortlessly and sat across from him.
The other regulars would remark quietly on how sad it was that Darrell passed the way he did, how the hole where he once sat never seemed to be filled. But that was the breaks, they said.
Luck, karma, whatever you wanted to call it, always came calling. It always evened itself out.
When the numbers on the ticket Darrell had purchased on his last day were read off one by one, none could believe that they matched the winning numbers.
But they all remembered the woman with the laughing eyes, even if they had not truly seen her. The ticket was set aside, a silent homage to the one no longer present, and in the back of their minds, a tiny sacrifice to the woman they all worshiped, whether they knew it or not.
The lady with the laughing eyes was fickle at times, but she was the hope they held inside and the death they knew might come. The wheel of fortune turns, and where it lands, it lands. That is all they know.