[AlbClub] Three widows-short story

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"Three widows"
   
  Short story by 
  Përparim Kapllani
   
  The three widows jumped out of the slot machine and formed a mortal chorus. Ermir Arbana had no idea, when their husbands died. The widows came together in their hunt for big spenders and capricious boyfriends. Ermir didn’t know their names. He hardly recognized the details, their faces, their features. He could hardly see the black scarves thrown on their heads, which were tied around their necks. They wore light skirts and dresses, so light, so their clients could see the round shapes of their bumps and legs. They made him horny. All three of them made him ejaculate. 

He stiffened in front of the slot machine! The three widows stood right beside each other on the horizontal line of the screen. He couldn’t even believe it, as the computer’s voice was telling him that he won 15 thousand dollars. He pressed the ironed bar down a hundred times, occupied by the terrible anxiety. He pressed the spin buttons and the maximum buttons at the one dollar machine without results. That machine, that metallic beast with those figurative and colored teeth had swallowed all his weekly pay cheque of eight hundred dollars. He got off the chair and withdrew the money from the ATM machines 5 times in the row. All the withdrawals were made in maximum amounts of three hundred dollars. Under the white clouds of smoke, with his eyes reddened by the fever and anger, he didn’t care anymore about the half naked waitresses, not for their white underwear either, as they were offering him free drinks. 

“Oh, yeah? They offer you a free drink, which costs you 20 thousand dollars already. Twenty thousand dollars for one can of coke!” He grabbed his head with his bare hands so many times. He left Woodbine Casino at Rexdale and Islington so desperate, extremely sad and ready to cry. His humor was gone for a while. 

“I risked paying the rent last month, but today the luck knocked on my door,” he murmured. 

“Louis Pasteur, the French scientist who invented the penicillin, used to say that “the luck helps the prepared minds". Am I prepared for good luck, for this big amount of joy?” he spoke loudly.

The three widows were on one line together. All those sacrifices were paid off with the biggest prize ever, since he started playing the slots: 15 000 dollars. The bulb on top of the slot machine went on and off in a strange rhythm. That signal bulb was like the Aladdin lamp and it gleamed in so much light and brightness. He got crazy and kissed every single widow on their lips. Those little figures, those sexual drawings gave him the victory. 

One of the employees came close to him with a blind jealousy on his face. He congratulated him and promised that he would be back as soon as possible. 

Ermir waited

and waited

and waited, 

'till the employee came back with a bunch of banknotes, all 100 dollar bills, which he counted slowly. He scratched his head with his fingers and closed his eyes. 

“I just defeated the machine. This robot had no feelings. It had stolen all of my life's savings, the last 11 months and now it just gave up.”

All of the sudden Natasha came into his mind, his Albanian girlfriend. She was waiting for him at home. 

“Maybe she fell asleep! I am going to wake her up and cover her body with the hundred dollar bills. Or, you know what? I will let her sleep well. I’ll imagine how she is going to scream in the morning.”

Ermir imagined every single detail of his way back to his apartment, where his little Blondie was waiting for him. He stuffed the piles of banknotes in his pockets, in his pants, in his jacket, even in his underwear. He pinched himself to make sure that it was not a dream. He felt pain. 

“No, everything was real. My dream came true.”

He tried to stand up, but his legs lost control. He saw the three widows making a strange chorus and speaking loud toward him. The first one on the left side spoke some metallic words. As soon as the widow on the left stopped talking, the second widow kept going. The third one spoke right after the second one, and all three in chorus screamed at once together.

“I'm your girlfriend. The other two are witches. They pretend to be my rivals but how can they be my rivals when they are so old? They lied to you by making you happy with a very little thing, a small victory. This was Pyrrhic victory. You know Pyrrhus? He occupied so much land, but lost so many soldiers! After that bloody victory he had said: “One more victory like that and we will all be dead”. Why don’t you try to play one more time? You might win one million dollars. You can be rich tonight,” the first widow murmured. 

“Give it up!” Go home! You will lose everything. Do you understand? Everything,” the other two said. 

He rubbed his eyes. He felt extremely tired. His body filled with a chill. Maybe that night was his big Bang. 

“Since I won 15 000 dollars, I might be lucky to win one million dollars. Why not? Imagine a huge fucking bag, full of hundred dollar bills, all brand new,” he murmured.

He gulped. His hands shivered. He felt his hair rising up by the emotions and his anxiety.

“My ladies, I just want one more victory!”

He put his hand in his pocket. He enjoyed playing the game of love with his widows, the wining game.
…

The three widows jumped on the horizontal line of the screen and played all over again. He was feeling so good! What a joy and excitement this game was giving to him! 

The slot machine swallowed the banknotes all over again. One widow stayed for a couple of seconds in the middle of the horizontal line. A cherry stood five seconds after that. A couple of queens replaced the cherry. Three soldiers were on a line ten minutes later. 

“The soldiers are not so important these days. They are getting killed on the daily basis,” his inner voice murmured.

Time was passing by, as he lost his concentration on the game. He didn’t know were he was anymore, as some dudes behind his back screamed to someone else:

“It’s two o’clock AM.”

The three widows were not together. No more Chorus! They had got lost somewhere. They escaped one after another. And Ermir Arbana, the permanent hunter, was chasing them without missing a second.He looked at his watch. 

“It is 11:00 AM,” he panicked. 

He licked his upper lip. His throat was itchy, because of the thirst. He checked his pockets again, instinctively. The widows showed up on the screen laughing out loud. They disappeared suddenly. They came back again on the screen. They were almost naked . They wore just bras and underwear. He felt a terrible sexual hunger corroding him from inside out. He hit the slot machine very hard with his fist. Hard! But the widows didn’t come together. That was the dead end. He stuck his fingers in his tired skull. The widows were not friendly anymore. He lost everything. He closed his eyes and walked towards the Exit sign. 

He moaned, as he heard an inner voice crying far deep in his existence. He got on his car and drove incautiously. He felt his tears dropping on his cheeks. 

“I just lost 15 thousand dollars, that I won yesterday and I lost another 20 thousand dollars the last 11 months,” he screamed. 

He lifted his head and looked at the dark sky.

Here are the three widows. They're all in black and staring at him with anger. He entered highway 27 and increased the speed rapidly. 

“Come back! Play again!” the first widow sang.

“Come back, my love, come back,” the second widow said. 

“Why don’t you jump from the top of a skyscraper and kill yourself”, the third one warned. 

“Oh, you want me to commit suicide? I’m going to kill all the bosses who own casinos and all the members of parliament who let the casinos to be built," he screamed to himself, as he pushed the gas pedal harder and harder.

“You are a loser! Go, kill yourself” the Chorus of the widows sang.

He skirmished his teeth and pushed the gas pedal again. 
…
The next day, the biggest Toronto newspapers published the news for a guy who jumped from the 18th  floor of a high rise building. The news was five lines long and his name was published with initials: E. A.

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