The Unlucky Pessimist

People can't tell the future.

This fact is pretty widely accepted. But for Ruth Springer, things were a little different. It wasn't that she couldn't tell the future so much as it was that fate had an annoying tendency of proving her wrong every time she attempted to.

It started in her early teens. Every night she'd read trashy romance novels and listen to Power Rock Ballads into the wee hours of the night. And just before she finally did get to sleep she'd complain aloud "I have a test tomorrow and I just know I'm going to fail." She did this almost every night for four years. And graduated top of her class in high school.

"You're always so lucky," her friend Jill said to her one day. "And yet you're always complaining. You've got that pessimist's luck, I think."

Ruth did indeed whine a lot. On her first day of her first year in college she groaned that she'd never meet any cute guys living in an all girl's dorm. The next day a few members of the Drama and Dance clubs, all handsome, well groomed men, were granted permission to establish their frat house across the street. "Oh great." She said dryly while watching them carry furniture and heavy boxes into their new HQ. "I bet they'll all be gay." Needless to say, they weren't. At least not all of them.

She constantly griped about never having enough time to complete her assignments, and her professors constantly fell ill on or around assignment deadlines. She complained about never finding a proper job, with a high enough starting salary to afford her own apartment, and when she was fast tracked into the most prestigious law firm in the city, she practically wept because she wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her best friend Jill.

Yesterday was the first time in a long while that Ruth felt genuinely depressed. She woke up in her lavish penthouse apartment and ate her breakfast in front of the large oval window, staring blankly at the view of the large park below and the rest of the city beyond it. She got dressed in her favorite blouse and pencil skirt and drove her Mercedes Benz E-class from the private parking lot below her apartment to the private parking lot below her office building. Once in her office she sat in her executive massage chair behind her huge, wrap-around, oak desk and sighed.

Eventually, she had enough sighing and decided it was time to get to work. She hit a button on the intercom attached to her desk and tried to sound pleasant while asking her secretary to bring in 'That damned Gelman file.' She wasn't doing that great a job in the way of being pleasant. But it was for good reason. You see, the Gelman file was huge. So huge in fact that when Ruth's secretary finally brought in the two file boxes and three overstuffed file folders, it appeared as though the entire stack had sprouted two rather shapely legs, lumbered through the door and sat on the edge of the sturdy desk.

"Thanks, Jill." Ruth sighed. Jill might have replied with something like "No problem, boss lady", but she was still panting from having lugged the boxes of files in. When she finally did speak it was to say "What's the matter, Ruth? You look a little down."

"It's this damn Gelman case. I feel like I--"

"Like you'll never get through it?" Jill asked eagerly. "Like it'll never go away? Go on, you can say it."

"Gee, thanks Jill. You really know how to lift a girls spirits."

"Well, aren't you going to say it? Aren't you going to - y'know - Complain?"

"What would that do?"

"Well, in your case: Everything. For as long as I've known you, every time
you've complained about something things take a turn for the positive.
So why not just complain this case away?"

"Please Jill. The man's been accused of embezzling millions of dollars! This case isn't going to go away any time soon."

Just then the phone rang. Jill grinned at it beamishly and Ruth glared at it a bit apprehensively. The phone rang again, completely non-plussed by the strange looks it was getting. Jill answered it saying "Good morning, Neil, Jefferson, and Springer law offices. How may I help you?" rather sweetly into the receiver.

"Certainly," She continued. "Please hold."

Jill placed her hand over the receiver and turned that mad grin on Ruth. "It's for you." She said. "It's mister Gelman."

"Hello? Yes. Come again? I'm not sure I understand. Well how was it-- You're sure? Well there's still the matter of our fee. Oh. Well in that case...have a nice day?"

Ruth hung up the phone and stared at it perplexed. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Then she looked at Jill and said "That was--"

"I know." Jill interrupted and she began stacking the now useless Gelman file.

"They...they found the money."

"Oh, that's nice." Jill said. She sounded genuinely pleased but completely unsurprised.

"It was all just a big accounting error."

"See, I told you."

"The case. It's gone. I complained it away."

"I'll be at my desk playing Sudoku. You call me once you're over the shock." And Jill left, leaving her friend to untwist the pretzel shape she'd put her brain into.

That night, Ruth lay in her large, sprawling, mostly empty bed. It was empty, Jill realized, because she hadn't complained about a single thing for the rest of the day. Not even the fact that when she got home, she'd have no one to fight over the covers with. She sat here just as she'd sat in her office after that phone call. Silent and mesmerized.

"I know!" She suddenly erupted, so sudden in fact that it even startled her for a moment and she continued talking to herself in a softer voice, like a madwoman telling herself a secret. "I know what I'll do. I'll prove that it was just a coincidence. Tomorrow-" Ruth paused and her eyes scanned the room for any sign of glimmering magic or ardent glamor. "Tomorrow I'll wake up...and it'll be raining...and...um...thats it."

Ruth lay back slowly, letting her head sink into the goose down pillows and clapped her hands cautiously, as if in turning off her bedside lamp she might accidentally un-make the universe as well. At first she fought off sleep. She lay in bed with wide, searching eyes on the lookout for mischievous pixies or naughty elves. But all she saw was the silver moonlight filtering into her penthouse apartment from the massive oval windows.

And then she could fight it no more. Ruth Springer surrendered herself to sleep; and never woke up.