The Parlayer’s Tale

When April’s edge with cruel slips is drawn,
And bettors wake ere dawn to chase the fawn
Of fortune, fickle, fickle as a line
That shifts at news of hamstring or of spine—
Then Buckets rose, a lad of laughing grace,
With memes for swords and parlays in their place.

No match too small, no odds too long for him—
He saw through fog what others deemed too dim.
A llama once did bless his mortal pick,
And since that day, each wager landed slick.
O’er spreads and props, his wisdom spread like fire—
Even Ian bowed, his voice grown hoarse, entire.

“Yon boy is touched,” the bookies cried, afeard,
“For every dart he throws strikes what he ne’er sheared!”
And so they watched, as dreams turned into fact,
As Buckets’ slips rewrote the almanac.
From Iceland’s cup to MLS by night,
Each call divine, each underdog took flight.

Till one dark day, a storm behind his eyes,
Young Buckets sighed, and whispered to the skies:
“If Fate be mine, and Death delayeth still,
Then shall I bet ’gainst mine own mortal will.”
He wagered thus: “I shall not see night’s fall.”
At +900, Ian wept at such gall.

The match began—no pitch, no ball, no crowd—
Just ticking clocks and thunder shouting loud.
He laughed at first, still sipping from his brew,
But noon brought tremors, sky no longer blue.
A door slammed shut; a mirror cracked in two,
The lights went black, the odds became the view.

For Fate, once flattered, now had been defied,
And wagers must be paid, no hope denied.
The final slip, the final line he crossed—
For Buckets bet himself, and thus was lost.

Now Ian speaks in riddles on the air,
Of chalk and rain and something in the stair.
He warns: “Bet not thy breath, nor boast thy might—
For when the spread is life… there is no hedge in sight.”