The Gambler by: Abdel Latif Moubarak

The Gambler

​Short story by: Abdel Latif Moubarak 

Egyptian writer 

​It was just past midnight when Adel walked into the gambling hall for the very first time. He wasn’t looking for money; he was looking for "the feeling." That specific thrill that disrupts the heartbeat when life teeters between winning and losing. The air in the room was thick with the scent of premium tobacco, the rustle of playing cards, and the clinking of colored chips that gleamed like cheap gems under the dim lights.

​Adel placed his first card on the table. His hand trembled slightly, but the eyes of those around him watched with cold indifference. That night, lady luck smiled broadly upon him. He walked home with pockets heavy with cash and a heart lighter than a feather.

​Adel became a regular. That dark, enclosed sanctuary transformed into his safe haven. In the gambling hall, Adel was no longer the ordinary clerk earning a salary that barely stretched to the middle of the month; there, he was "Mr. Adel," the man everyone pointed to whenever his hand cast the dice.

​He began to notice that the days he didn't visit the hall felt faded, completely devoid of color—just like the screen of an old television set with no signal. He only truly lived during those fleeting seconds just before the cards were revealed.

​"Luck is no one's friend; it is merely a passerby who smiles at you and then steals your wallet." 

​This proverb came true on a bleak winter night. Adel started playing with overinflated confidence, but for the first time, the cards betrayed him. He lost the first round, then the second. Instead of walking away, a strange obstinacy took hold of him. He pulled out the last bit of cash remaining in his pocket and lost that too.

​For the first time, Adel tasted the bitterness of defeat in his throat. He walked home in the pouring rain, whispering to himself: "Tomorrow, I will win it all back. It’s just a temporary setback."

​Adel did not hesitate to withdraw the savings of the past five years—the money he had been painstakingly gathering to marry Sara, the girl who had waited for him for so long. He convinced himself it was just a "short-term investment." He would double the amount in a single night, return the principal to the bank, and use the profit to buy Sara the wedding dress of her dreams.

​On the green felt table, the numbers began to spin in his head like a cyclone. He no longer saw faces; he only saw red and black. Within two hours, a lifetime of savings vanished into thin air.

​Signs of exhaustion began to etch themselves onto Adel's face. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and he became short-tempered and distant, completely absent even when sitting among his family. Sara noticed this drastic change and tried repeatedly to talk to him, but he always evaded her.

​Adel was no longer just gambling with money; he was gambling with his time, his health, and his love. He had transformed from a man who owned the game into a game owned by the table.

​When his personal funds completely dried up, Adel turned to friends and relatives, begging for loans with flimsy excuses: "a temporary financial crisis," "a sudden illness of a relative." Everyone trusted his past integrity, so they lent him the money.

​But the borrowed cash burned faster than firewood in a hearth. He found himself hunted by the glaring eyes of creditors, and his phone never stopped ringing. His life devolved into a hell of subterfuge, hiding in the shadows of the city.

​In a moment of absolute desperation, while sitting at his desk at the company where he worked as a cashier, Adel stared at the open iron safe. The devil didn't have to whisper for long; the fear of public scandal before his creditors screamed louder than his conscience.

​He reached out and took a thick stack of the company's cash. He told himself: "I’ll put it back tomorrow morning before anyone notices." This was the ultimate lie that a gambler always sells to himself.

​He entered the hall that night as if carrying a ticking time bomb. The stakes were high, the atmosphere suffocatingly tense. He placed all of the company's money on a single spin of the roulette wheel. The wheel spun... and with it, his entire life spun out of control.

​The little white ball settled on a number that wasn't his. Total silence enveloped his ears, and the world around him lost all sound. A piercing coldness rushed through his body. He had lost everything: his money, his honor, and his future.

​In the morning, Adel did not report to work. Instead, the police showed up at his modest apartment after the cash deficit was discovered. The news spread like wildfire. Crying over her shattered illusions, Sara called off the engagement, and his friends completely disowned him.

​Behind bars, in a cramped and freezing cell, Adel sat staring at his hands—the very hands that once held the playing cards. There was no clamor, no bright lights, no colored chips. There was only the hollow echo of the guard's slow footsteps.

​The years