My second story isn’t much better, but it’s different. Which is nice. Like I told my mother on the weekend when I picked her up from Bingo, it’s good to keep trying even if you never succeed. She didn’t reply, but just scowled. 12 months of Bingo without winning. She thinks it must be fixed. Benedict who runs the Bingo nights is French, which is why she finds him suspicious; she never liked the French. But she’s found some nice friends there who keep her from getting too down. She enjoys crossing out the numbers with her stubby pencil. She’s like Sisyphus, pushing her boulder up the hill, only for it to roll down. Just doing it is the thing; the result doesn’t count. “Yes it counts!” she yells, surprising me by knowing my thoughts. Keep crossing out those numbers, mom. You never know.