The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

Host: The sun was setting behind the abandoned racetrack, bleeding orange and gold into the cracked asphalt. A lonely wind rippled through the stands, whistling over discarded tickets and broken bottles. The scoreboard still hung crooked, its numbers faded, its lights long dead.

In the center of the field, near an old fence, Jack and Jeeny sat on a rusted bench, a deck of cards between them. The air smelled of damp grass, rust, and old hope — that peculiar fragrance of places where people once believed in winning.

Jeeny: (shuffling the cards, slow and careful) “Bret Harte said, ‘The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.’ Funny, isn’t it? We build our lives on things that never stay still.”

Jack: (lighting a cigarette, smirking) “That’s not funny, Jeeny. That’s life. You win, you lose, you move on. The trick is not to take luck personally.”

Jeeny: “Easy for you to say. You’ve always believed in systems, in cause and effect. You don’t gamble — you calculate.”

Jack: “That’s exactly why I don’t end up broken when things fall apart.”

Jeeny: (dealing two cards) “And yet… you’re sitting here with me, in a racetrack graveyard, smoking away the last daylight. Doesn’t sound like someone who’s winning.”

Host: Jack’s laugh was low, dry, and brief, like the crack of a matchstick. He looked out at the track, its circle of dirt now invaded by weeds, the echo of old hoofbeats still haunting the wind.

Jack: “You mistake survival for losing. I stopped chasing luck a long time ago.”

Jeeny: “And what did you start chasing instead?”

Jack: “Certainty.”

Jeeny: “Ah. The illusion every gambler hates.”

Jack: (grinning) “And every fool worships.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the beauty of it? That life keeps its hand hidden? We never know when it’ll deal us gold or ruin.”

Jack: “No. That’s chaos dressed as poetry. People romanticize randomness because they can’t handle accountability.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe they accept that life is bigger than logic.”

Jack: “Logic builds bridges. Luck builds myths.”

Jeeny: “And yet myths are what keep us walking across those bridges when they start to crumble.”

Host: The sky dimmed, turning violet. A light drizzle began — soft, uncertain, as if the clouds themselves weren’t sure what they wanted to do. Jack tilted his head, letting a few drops touch his face, unmoving. Jeeny smiled faintly, the cards forgotten now, her hands resting in her lap.

Jeeny: “You know what I think luck really is?”

Jack: “Enlighten me.”

Jeeny: “Luck is the world reminding you that you’re not in control. That even if you do everything right — even if you plan, work, calculate — there’s still a storm waiting somewhere.”

Jack: “That’s not luck, that’s entropy.”

Jeeny: “Call it what you want. It’s the same thing that humbles kings and saves beggars.”

Jack: “Then it’s just balance. Not some mystical force.”

Jeeny: “But balance is mystical, Jack. It’s the quiet law that keeps everything moving. When you’re up, it whispers you’ll fall. When you’re down, it promises you’ll rise.”

Jack: “That sounds like comfort talk for losers.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s hope for survivors.”

Host: The wind picked up, lifting the cards from the bench. They fluttered, scattering across the track like white birds escaping a storm. One landed face-up near Jack’s boot — the Queen of Hearts, creased and dirty, but still recognizable.

Jack: (picking it up) “You see that? Chance pretending to mean something.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it does.”

Jack: “It’s paper, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “And yet you picked it up.”

(a pause)

Jack: “Reflex.”

Jeeny: “No. Recognition.”

Host: A train horn wailed in the distance, the sound stretching through the open night like a reminder that the world kept moving, even when they didn’t. Jack sighed, crushing his cigarette beneath his heel, watching the smoke twist into the rain.

Jack: “You talk about luck like it’s a god.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. A small, mischievous god who loves irony.”

Jack: “Then I’ve been cursed by it more times than I’ve been blessed.”

Jeeny: “Then it means you’ve lived. Luck only visits those who dare to move.”

Jack: “That’s a comforting lie.”

Jeeny: “No. That’s the truth in motion.”

Host: The rain fell harder now, drumming against the bench, soaking their clothes. But neither moved. Jeeny watched the track, her voice softer, almost a whisper swallowed by the storm.

Jeeny: “Do you remember when we tried to start that café? You called it a ‘statistical suicide.’”

Jack: “Because it was.”

Jeeny: “And yet for three months, we had lines around the block. We had laughter. Music. Strangers turning into friends. That was luck, Jack.”

Jack: “That was momentum.”

Jeeny: “And when it failed?”

Jack: “That was math.”

Jeeny: “No. That was the wheel turning. You can’t curse the spin just because it stopped on red.”

Jack: “You sound like a poet explaining bankruptcy.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like an accountant explaining a heartbeat.”

Host: Lightning flashed, and for a moment, both faces were illuminated — Jack’s angular, pale, hardened, Jeeny’s warm, eyes dark with understanding. The contrast between them felt like a painting — one of those old chiaroscuro portraits, half light, half shadow, both truth.

Jack: “You really think luck changes?”

Jeeny: “Of course it does. That’s its only rule.”

Jack: “Then why does it never seem to change for me?”

Jeeny: “Maybe because you keep betting against it.”

Jack: “So what should I do? Pray to your little god of irony?”

Jeeny: “No. Just stay long enough to see the turn.”

Host: The rain slowed, the storm easing into a mist, the kind that hung low and silver under the stadium lights that hadn’t shone in years. Jack looked down at the Queen of Hearts again, now soaked, the ink bleeding, but still visible.

Jack: “You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe the trick isn’t fighting luck — it’s waiting for its mood to swing.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because it always will.”

Jack: “And when it does?”

Jeeny: “We start again. With wet cards and stubborn hearts.”

Host: The camera would pull back, rising slowly over the track, where the two figures sat soaked in rain and resolve. The cards scattered around them glimmered faintly under the last blush of sunset, like fallen stars caught in the mud.

And as the sky darkened, one truth remained, echoing quietly between the sound of the rain and the pulse of time:

That luck, like life, is not something to win or lose,
but something to endure —
because the only sure thing about fortune
is that it will change.