Luck: It's a funny thing, is it not?🍀
My grandfather bought land at one third the price that his brother paid. Both had green, rolling hills. Both had rivers and ponds, valleys and caves. Both were beautiful parcels that allowed you to rise early and catch a beautiful sunset, or sip tea in the evening, watching the sun dip behind the treeline. After settling on their new land, the brothers met. They toured the valley, appreciated the beauty of each other's estates, and reveled in their grand outcomes. When it came to the topic of price, the older brother had clearly been favored by fortune.
"Damn if you're not the luckiest son of a gun.🍀 A third of the price? I'd be tempted to sell mine and buy over here, but the missus would have my hide. She's settled in and wouldn't be keen on getting uprooted so soon."
So the brothers settled, raised their families, and began to set out building their lives. Who would predict that the nuclear power plant would be built in the vicinity of my grandfather's land?
"Tsk,tsk. An unlucky event for poor Grant.🍀 Those smokestacks cut right across his pretty view. Sure he saved a fortune, but at what cost? I bet his brother is feeling like the lucky one now.🍀"
Our family was the talk of the town for a while, and then life went on, as it always does.
The smokestacks were there before I was born, so I didn't know any different. As far as the scar against the landscape, I chose to have a different opinion. They were interesting shapes, and they created puffy clouds. I used my imagination and created tales of why they were there. But most of all, I immersed myself in the beauty of my grandfather's land.
My favorite spot was the emerald valley. I found myself getting lost in the fields of clover day after day. I never knew why people thought four-leaf clovers were so rare, but I couldn't seem to find anything but them. I would kneel down on my knees, inspecting the clusters and search with difficulty to find a three-leaf clover. As a matter of fact, it was even easier to find five-leaf clovers and an occasional six-leaf, but the regular three-leaf variety was much harder to discover.
On every St. Patrick's day, I would bring bunches of special shamrocks to school, much to the delight of the whole class.
"Oliver, how can you find so many four-leaf clovers? The luck of the Irish runs through your veins?🍀"
I led them to believe that it took me ages to find them all, but it was as simple as grabbing handfuls of grass.
Who would know that the same "lucky radiation" from those giant nuclear smokestacks- that was so easily turning 3-leaf clovers to 4-leaf clovers, was also turning healthy people and cattle into sickly versions of themselves.🍀
It took a while; it wasn't immediate. But soon the whole greater valley was talking about all sorts of funny symptoms. Not funny - ha ha. More like funny - grandma isn't getting better. Which isn't very funny, after all - or very lucky, come to think of it.🍀
So years of sickness, dying, and even some deaths led to all of us putting 2 and 2 together. Radiation poisoning eventually brought a lawsuit and some nice settlements from the power company. Seven-figure rewards for each individual affected- we were rich. How lucky!🍀 But still dying - how tragically unlucky.🍀
I used to always look at those posters and billboards from casinos and lotteries. Laughing to myself, thinking, why is it always the elderly that win those things? They have one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana peel. Why can't some young people win? People who have all the time in the world to enjoy that money! And now here we all were in the same position. Young and middle-aged millionaires, all of us, for 2-3 years? Then, the grave for most. Until one lucky moment.🍀
I had noticed that the cattle grazing in the clover fields seemed healthier than the ones penned by the barn. Now, I could tell you all about how that clover protected itself against the radiation pouring from those reactors, and offered that same protection to the creatures ingesting those clover leaves. I could tell you about the research, the experimentation, the amateur trials, the theories, the antidote, and the eventual patent on medicine that healed the whole town and brought my grandfather an 11-figure offer.
Or I could just tell you that we are the descendants of the luckiest son of a gun in these here parts.🍀
Luck. It sure is a funny thing.🍀
An entry for The Ink Well's March Contest. Good luck to you all! 🍀
This is beautiful indeed. First I thought the story was going in one direction until you took it to an entirely different place.
And while being funny, it also touches on the dangers of the toxic air being pumped into our atmosphere on a daily basis. Hopefully, this would be resolved just as easily.
And it is very good to read your work again, @stormcharmer, I have to say it's been a minute. I hope you are back for good? Even I took a little break, but I am making my way back as well.
Thank you for such a beautiful story.
My long lost friend. 😅
Can you believe it really has been a minute. ha ha
I don't know if I'm back for good, but I wrote another post for today, so I say that's a nice trend. Will it continue? I'm not as sure. ha ha I will try. You have been taking a break also? I'll come visit your blog as soon as I post the story for today and come read from you and see how you're faring.
Thank you so much for the warm welcome back. It feels so nice to have a hug from a friend
Nicely done. You have humor. And irony. You have personality, and story arc. You certainly have setting. All in all, you have a good story, a pleasure to read.
Thank you for sharing this 'green' story with us. We very much appreciate that you support other writers. Comments are extremely encouraging.
Yes, I might have gone a bit overboard in my comments yesterday. ha ha I've been away from the ink well for too long, and I decided to come back with a bang. 😅 I'm very happy to see that writing yesterday seems to have triggered another entry for today. I hope that it will be another welcomed read for you.
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It appears that land has the same value across the globe and the nuclear plant just made fortune da yoon you family, the aftermath is considerably not a funny one.
For the clover, I haven't taken note of that until now, I will watch out for a four-leaf clover to see if some good omen come along.
I once found a four-leaf clover. I am still waiting to win the lottery though. 😅
What a wonderful story @stormcharmer. It was intelligent and funny and real. I loved how you drew me in with the unusual abundance of 4 leaf clovers (which allowed me to drop my guard as it made sense being an Irish folklore kinda story) and then slapped me with a reality check with the introduction of the nuclear smokestacks. Great imagery. And even when you are being tragic, you do it with intentional humour. I curate for the VYB community and have upvoted this post on behalf of the VYB Curation Project. Please feel free to use our tag #vyb on your post to earn both #vyb and #pob tokens from VYB curators. I do hope to see more of your short stories in the Inkwell in the future.
Curated on behalf of the VYB Curation Project.
Thank you @samsmith1971. I'm ever on the search for more tags to use as I'm not very familiar with what is out there. I will use your tag on my next story for today. Thank you again 😅
You are very welcome 😊 If you are looking for more tags to use I literally just suggested some to @itsostylish yesterday on her post... let me grab a copy of what I wrote and drop it here for you...
The owner of the Scholar and Scribe Community replied to my comment with this:
If you are going to continue to write fiction, you may also want to use the #creativecoin tag in conjunction with the #fiction tag as this may draw some curation from the Creative Coin Fund and/or Pibara. You are welcome to check out the tags I use on my short stories too and feel free to tag me if you need any more help. I may not have all the answers (definitely do not have all the answers !LOLZ😂) but I can tag others who may be able to help if I can't. Good luck!
You've given me so much to add. I will update my last two posts with those tags now. Thank you again @samsmith1971 People like you make it easier to understand these blogging sites.
@samsmith1971 you might want to read this, it’s pretty sad https://ecency.com/hive-179541/@cccf/creative-coin-fund-to-cease-operations-cccf-funds-distributed-to-delegators
Oh no! That is indeed sad.
Thanks for the shoutout again @samsmith1971! I appreciate you sending people over to Scholar and Scribe! We are aiming to build up stake in some of the other tokens you've mentioned as well in order to help the writers that are posting in the community earn across various tokens! @stormcharmer feel free to stop in and check out the community and drop a post! We are just starting out so don't have a frontend yet- it's more likely to earn SCHOLAR and SCRIBE tokens if you post within the community itself for added visibility!
!PIZZA !ALIVE !PIMP
You must be killin' it out here!
@dibblers.dabs just slapped you with 1.000 PIMP, @samsmith1971.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
You can still slap 1/1 more people today.
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
@samsmith1971! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @dibblers.dabs. (1/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want.
Fabulously told and what a “lucky son of a gun”, indeed! I always find it interesting that some writers, like you, just manage to capture the reader and pull them along, never a boring moment; writing stories that people want to read to the end - it’s a rare gift. Your tale is full of conflict, angst and deep reflection, until we land on the stunningly wonderful solution. Grandly done, I absolutely loved it.😊❤️🤔
Thank you sincerely @itsostylish. Your comment humbles me. When I get to hear the words "I absolutely loved it" regarding any of my writing, it makes my day. I haven't written in so long. I decided to write again for the contest and I found myself sinking deep into the story. I hope that my ability to write is finding its way back to me. ha ha!
It certainly is❤️💕🤗
Hello @stormcharmer. I loved your story, between tragedy and fortune. Very well told. And an ending that is a hope for life. Sometimes we don't know or even imagine how luck can change our lives.
I congratulate you
A hug 🍀
I appreciate the encouragement and the hug. I wasn't sure if I was going to have another post to enter for the contest, but I came up with one today. I will be posting it in just a few moments, as soon as I find some nice images to accompany the story.
Thank you for the visit @popurri 😅
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