The Glow of the Monitor 

I sat in front of the monitor in a dark room where the only light came from the cold glow of the screen.

Inside that small, suffocating space, time dissolved like smoke.

It disappeared into forgotten corners.

It became nothing more than an insignificant number in the bottom-right corner of the display.

Hours passed.

For me, they no longer existed.

My eyes burned from staring endlessly at betting odds and live scores, as though I could burn a hole through the monitor with the sheer force of my desire to win.

I couldn't look away.

I was chained to it.

Hypnotized.

Addicted.

The click of the mouse was like the pull of a trigger—quick...

final...

irreversible.

Every bet was a cry into the void.

A challenge thrown at fate...

a fate that never listened.

"Fast money."

"Big winnings."

Those promises echoed through my mind like incantations meant to overpower reality.

I had become a monk inside a digital temple, praying to the gods of statistics and probability gods that betrayed me every single time.

It was a strange kind of faith.

Blind trust in numbers I barely understood, yet somehow believed possessed the power to change my life.

The night was thick and silent, as though the world itself had hidden from what I was about to do.

I sat on my bed.

My hands trembled.

My thoughts churned like storm clouds inside my head.

The losses never stopped.

Each one pushed me deeper into the mud.

The more I lost...

the stronger became my desperate need to win it all back.

It was a vicious circle with no exit.

A trap I had willingly walked into.

"Just once..."

"Just this one time..."

"I'll win everything back."

Slowly...

like a shadow...

I crept toward my mother's desk in the kitchen.

For a moment, I hesitated.

The scent of her perfume still lingered in the air.

It reminded me of childhood.

Of safety.

Of innocence.

It was the scent of a time when life had been simple.

When the world had still been clean.

But the craving was stronger.

It felt almost physical.

An invisible force pulling me forward...

forcing me to act.

My hand slipped into her handbag like a snake.

My fingers found the cold plastic of her credit card.

My heart pounded as I closed my hand around it.

It was light.

Yet it carried the crushing weight of every lie I had ever told.

For a brief second, a thought crossed my mind.

I could still put it back.

I could still walk away.

But it was nothing more than an illusion.

Back in my room, with trembling hands, I logged into the betting website.

Username.

Password.

No hesitation.

Click.

Deposit.

Click.

Place bet.

Click.

Lost.

So fast.

So easy.

So irreversible.

Again.

Again.

Every click struck like a hammer driving another nail into the coffin of my last hope.

This was no longer gambling.

It was addiction.

There was no escape.

Every click was another desperate attempt to recover not only the money I had lost...

but my dignity...

my self-respect...

perhaps even my future.

I woke up in a room that suddenly felt unfamiliar.

The walls were gray.

Heavy.

Closer than they had ever been before.

The ceiling leaned over me like a silent judge.

The monitor was dark now.

Yet its glow still burned inside my mind, refusing to disappear.

The air was thick with the smell of sweat...

and shame.

Fragments of the previous night echoed inside my head.

One by one, memories forced themselves back together.

The betting website.

The black letters announcing another loss.

My mother's smile...

a smile I feared I might never see the same way again.

I had stolen from my own mother.

Guilt pierced my chest like an ice-cold blade.

I felt filthy.

Broken.

Worthless.

It was not only money I had lost.

I had lost myself.

My dignity.

My conscience.

Money can sometimes be repaid.

But the emptiness that remained after that night...

had no price.

It was a wound that could never truly heal.

A scar that would remain forever.

I lay there alone...

surrounded by the shadows of my own actions.

They filled every corner of the room.

They stared back at me from the reflection in the dark screen.

They wrapped themselves around the silence that held me like an icy embrace.

And for the very first time...

I realized that I had become the very person I had sworn I would never be.

I was alone.

And not even the greatest win imaginable...

could ever give back what I had lost.

– JK –