August 7, 2015




It was after midnight when I grabbed my styrofoam box from the kitchen, Asian Chicken salad, now slightly soggy because I had one last table dally over the check for an eternity, and then hopped in my beat up old junkerbefore making my way home. I munched my salad as I sat at my Freecycled desk and powered up my laptop, the only thing I had of value in my cheap little apartment. I checked my email as I ate, groaning at the reminder that I had yet another paper due Monday in Psychology and then deleted the forwarded messages from my mother without even opening them. The mood was not quite right for smiling kittens and virus warnings from over a decade ago. From there I went to class discussion boards that I mulled as I chewed slowly. Even those got to be too much thinking for my exhausted mind. The salad was gone, it was late and I was tired so I emptied my pockets before heading to bed. The tip money went into a large jar on the bottom of my press board shelves. Some lip balm, my car keys and my cell phone went on the desk. Oh, and the ticket.

I held it a moment before glancing back to the time. The numbers were drawn. Regardless of what I did with it now whether or not this ticket had won was already decided. And it was in my possession. Even if I gave it away now, it was my winning ticket. If it won. It couldn't have won. The chances were like one in a trillion.

I sat down and hesitantly pulled up the Powerball website. The numbers from the evening's draw were there, large, white circles against the blue background. I checked the power ball number first; seventeen, then glanced at the ticket. Damn, it matched, that was all I needed to technically win. I may have just traded my soul for three dollars. Slowly I read through the other numbers; eight, twelve, thirty-nine, forty seven, fifty nine. They matched. Every number matched. I glanced around the screen looking for the Powerball jackpot amount and found it in the one of the corner squares. Then my jaw dropped. I recalled it was a big number when I brought the ticket but it didn't register how big. I was the winner of over three hundred million dollars. I didn't trade my soul for small piles of green paper. I traded it for huge piles. Apparently when Satan does something, she does it big.




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