Luck

 Luck

by Ricki T Thues

Propitious knew a lot about luck. He was impulsive. Dead reckoning was his typical modus operandi.

One winter day Propitious was playing ice hockey with his friends on the neighborhood lake. They had swept a rink off the ice and set traffic cones at both ends as goals.

A long, cross-rink pass came skittering toward Propitious. He skated to an intersection, raised his stick and swung, hitting the puck solidly. The puck flew inches above the ice only to be slapped aside and out of bounds by the goalie.

Propitious kept skating hard, chasing the puck toward the middle of the lake. He sped up noticeably as he and the puck raced away from the rink.

“STOP! COME BACK!” yelled his fellow players.

“The ice is thin out there!”

He skated even harder, overtaking the puck. He threw his skates sidewise into a sliding hockey stop. A rooster tail of snow and ice fanned out in front of him. He stopped the puck with his stick. As he slid to a stop, he heard a quiet cracking sound. Propitious smiled and skated the puck back to the rink.

His friends greeted him nonplussed.

“You sure are lucky,” said Alvin.

Naqid said, “That was a pretty risky move.”

“There is no such thing as luck,” said Propitious, slapping the puck over to Alvin. “I have been skating this lake for ten years. You can see where the ice is thin because the snow becomes thin on the surface.”

When Propitious saw the puck deflected by the goalie he kept skating hard toward an intersection with the puck’s course. He assessed the speed and trajectory and saw that he would intercept the puck just shy of the thinning snow.

His analysis avoided the need for luck. His timing and the cracking of the ice showed that he was lucky after all. 

Luck is found on the edges of every plan. It is that area where anticipation falls into the unknown.

Naqid shook his head with incredulity. 

Propitious said, “Let’s play.”

He skated into the middle of the rink, eager to receive the inbound pass from Alvin.