Thomas Wins the Lottery by David Rempe
A soft-spoken man in his mid-thirties parks his Toyota Corolla at the convenience store. The car is old. It has rusty bits here and there, and its tan paint is peeling, and it has squeaky brakes. The man exits the car and trudges into the store. A low-resolution security camera watches him come in, and even on the blurry video it produces, it is clear the man is slouching.
The man is Thomas, and he is there to check a lottery ticket he purchased the other day on a whim.
A large man behind the counter addresses Thomas by his first name. What can he do for Thomas?
Thomas slouches beneath his vintage leather jacket. It is brown and has many ripped seams and doesn’t smell very good. He reaches into one of the jacket pockets and produces his ticket. Let’s see what this is good for.
The big man takes the ticket and scans it with a machine. It thinks for a second, then it spits a result onto the teller screen. By golly, you’re a winner!
Trembles and tremors ripple up and down Thomas’s lean and fragile figure. He is curious as to exactly how much he is entitled to; but he doesn’t know how to put it into words. This has never happened before.
Here’s the deal, the man behind the counter explains, Thomas has won a grand total of $17. He can take the money and run, or he can reinvest and fetch several more lottery tickets. Give it another go, so to speak.
Thomas opts to grab a soft drink in an oversized cup, and some cigarettes, and take the remainder in cash. He isn’t certain how he should feel, but at the moment he feels very strange.
Now in his car, he idles in the lot until sunset, flicking ash and sipping coke until both the drink and the smokes are all gone. He wants to go home.
