Part 1: All that for a 4 Leaf Clover?

“I guess I’m just unlucky”

I’ve heard that one a thousand times.

For many people, it’s often easier to leave life up to chance than attempt to control it. That way when we fail, we can blame it on the universe and move on, hoping we strike gold next time.

Sure, you can glide through your life at the will of the universe, but what if your fate is not exactly what you were hoping for?

It’s time to take Destiny into your hands!

“Get luck on your side with Witch-Cursed Bone Dice, down to $150.”

“Ensure a prosperous life with Custom Enchanted Fortune Cookies, now only 50 for $50 this week only!!!”

“So come on down to Larry’s Luck Boutique and FORGE YOUR FATE!”

The man in the green polo shirt, who one could presume to be Larry, yells through the television, his not so subtle salesman charm disturbing the quiet slumber of the sole inhabitant of this cosy cottage. A wrinkled, callus covered hand searches blindly for the remote, eventually silencing the onslaught of deals, steals and sales that take center stage on late night television.

“Bastard” mumbles the woman's worn voice from the couch.

A mess of hair like steel wool emerges from a woven blanket, revealing the tired eyes of Mrs Penny Calvo.

Her days start long before the sun can be bothered to rise. After microwaving some leftover rabbit stew, she tugs on a pair of worn overalls and heads out to the yard.

First she stokes the coals in her forge and gets to hammering out some horseshoes, a particularly lucky charm against mischievous fairies.

She then attends to her rabbits, holding a ruler up to their feet and scribbling the results on an iPad. Today, three of her twenty rabbits matched the luckiest lengths that she’s found through years of testing, numbers that she can never tell to anyone, in fear of Larry finding a way to mass produce those too.

The sun settles itself in the center of the sky when Penny kneels in front of her most prized possession; The Clover Patch, a wide open field with acres upon acres of green as far as her blurry old eyes can see.

She walks into a small shed that looks to be even older than her, its timber planks rotted with centuries of mildew, and emerges adorned in a mess of trinkets from head to toe; a horseshoe welded to a steel helmet, a necklace of rabbits feet hanging from her neck, a jar of lady beetles in one hand and an acorn in the other. Believe it or not, it takes quite a lot of luck to farm four leaf clovers, and even more to find one with five leaves like her great, great grandmother did once on this very farm.

She sets out into the field, checking each and every clover, stopping every once and a while to catch her breath.

The chances of the average person finding a four leaf clover is said to be 1 in 10,000, but while wearing “The Charm Suit”, as her son liked to call it when he was young, her chances rose to about 1 in 5,000. The odds still aren’t great, and oftentimes she would go days without finding a single one, but people still beg her to share some of her findings with them, offering unthinkable figures of cash and treasures for a single four leaf clover.

“Why not get yourself some Witch-Cursed Bone Dice from Larry’s, I’ve heard they’re on sale” she would tease them.

Every day they come, and every day she turns them away, for she knows the greed of mankind, and their obsession with controlling destiny, and she knows it to be a most unnatural affair. Most of her visitors are selfish in their requests; in search of financial gain, in finding love, in becoming famous, looking to cheat fate to get ahead.

“Bastards” she mutters. “Rotten to the core.”

She stops to catch her breath again, watching as the sun lazily drifts towards the horizon, leaving in its absence only cold breeze and purple skies. In fear of seeing yet another fruitless day, she keeps searching, picking up the pace before the last lick of light escapes.

“Three leaves, three leaves, three leaves, four leaves, three leaves” she pauses. She looks back.

“There you are, you sneaky prick,” she exclaims, bending over to pick it gently out of the ground. “Almost missed you.”

Out of her satchel, she pulls a small ziploc bag, “In ya go.”

Twilight is known as the time of mischief, and perhaps that’s why the clover suddenly took off into the air, floating higher and higher away from the old woman.

“Hey, what on earth? Get back here!” She stumbles through the field after it, trying her best not to trample the other plants, failing miserably. She swings her arms wildly at it, grasping only the air around it, pushing it further from her reach.

‘Had the wind taken it? or perhaps those damn fairies?’ she wonders.

Either way, she stands there bewildered, watching as it floats high into the air and out of sight.

“How … unlucky.”

Turns out someone else needs this luck far more than Penny.

Part 2: Lucky to be Alive

The four leaf clover drifted across town to a seldom used dirt road, where a man found himself lost. He furrowed his brow in concentration as he attempted to decipher the map on his phone, struggling to find any familiar landmarks that would signal his proximity to any type of civilization.

Further down the road, the large tyres of a 4 wheel drive tear through the loose dirt, haphazardly cutting corners and leaping bumps with reckless abandon.

The clover found its mark. It fell gently at the feet of the lost traveler.

“Oi Jake, jump that!”

One of the passengers pointed to a mound of dirt road up ahead.

The roaring engine strained as the driver picked up speed.

The traveler looked down, spotting the clover.

The vehicle took flight.

The traveler whipped around, blinded by two beams of light coming right at him.

…

Am I dead? Jacob thought as he stood up and looked around. Disorientated and a little confused, he searched the treeline for the car that had just sped right at him. As he patted himself down to confirm that he was indeed still alive, he unclenched his fists to find the four leaf clover crushed in his palm.

He collected his scattered belongings from the dirt, dusting them off and placing them back in his hikers pack.

They must have just driven off. Didn’t even stop.

He looked down at his map

AND I'M STILL LOST.

As if on cue, a bright spark of colours sprayed through the night sky to Jacob’s left, followed by a thunderous crash that roared in his ears

Fireworks?

It was remarkably fortunate that some kids had decided to steal fireworks from their uncle and set them off, as Jacob may never have made it back to town without the lights to guide him.

It was also extremely unlikely that the first person he saw in town happened to be his next door neighbor, who offered him a ride home.

Though perhaps most serendipitous was the divot in the road that made the 4 wheel drive and its passengers swerve to the left, barely avoiding Jacob, and plummeting off the road into a ravine.

Huh, these things really work.

He placed the clover on his bedside table, falling quietly into dream, blissfully oblivious to how lucky he was to be alive.