From the Journal of Elion Karsis
Untitled. Ink uneven. Written at sea.
If there is a god, then luck is his favorite lie.
They say fortune smiles. They say fate tilts. They say some hands are chosen and others merely empty. I have watched men bleed out in silence while prayers were still forming in their mouths. I have watched children learn the shape of hunger before language. I have watched cities grind themselves into obedience while the sky remains unchanged.
If there is a god, he does not lack vision. He lacks interest.
They tell me the gods are subtle. That they work in currents too large for us to see. That suffering is a test, or a refinement, or a necessary toll paid for some distant balance. I have stood ankle-deep in blood that had no audience. I have listened to people cry after the danger had already passed, when no miracle would bother arriving late.
Is that luck?
Is that design?
If the gods exist, they see the blood. They see the tears. They see the way the Night presses on ordinary people until they learn to carry it as posture. They see women bargain safety for proximity. They see men convince themselves that survival means virtue. They see the machinery turn and do not interrupt it.
Which means one of two things is true.
Either the gods cannot act—
or they have chosen not to.
Luck, then, is not favor. It is neglect that happened to miss you.
I am told I am unlucky. That the things I touch collapse. That death follows my decisions. That catastrophe ripples outward from my presence as if I invite it. This is convenient for those who wish to believe disaster has a face.
But I have seen how systems behave when left to continue.
I have seen how many lives must be spent to preserve the illusion of stability. I have seen how patience becomes cruelty when it is allowed to outlive conscience. If there is a god who blesses endurance without intervention, then my opposition is not heresy.
It is correction.
They ask why I do not pray.
Because prayer assumes someone is listening.
If a god exists who sees this world—the blood in the streets, the quiet bargains, the children learning fear before hope—and still relies on luck to decide who survives, then that god is not absent.
He is complicit.
And if no god exists, then all that remains is responsibility.
Either way, the answer is the same.
I will not wait for mercy to arrive late.
I will not gamble on fortune.
And I will not pretend that chance is justice
simply because it spared me
this time.