Saz Dosanjh

I awoke on a park bench. There was a wedding party by the fountain, they usually came here for the picture shoot after the ceremony. I sat up and squinted to get a clear look at the bride.

I was engaged once, working in an office, free coffee, lottery pool, we had everything. It was a proud moment when I was elected to be in charge of the lottery. Little did I realise the lottery would be my doom. Pride made me do it, I should have left it to Carla from payroll, she had wanted it badly.

Every Saturday afternoon I would duck out during our weekly shopping trip to buy the tickets, 24 tickets between 48 people. Every week, the woman at the till would say ‘here he is, Billy Big Boots, your usual 2 dozen?’ we laughed. The queue built up behind me while she fed in the grids and printed the tickets. It was a ritual I enjoyed.

Then it happened, the big one. We hit the jackpot, only I didn’t see it. I checked the numbers as usual on Saturday night, we had 1 or 2 numbers on each ticket, 2 tickets had 3 numbers each. Then Jim called, he had picked three numbers and Cynthia picked another three. They made up one grid between them and the numbers had come up. I should have had the winning ticket. I didn’t.

I went over the events in my head. I had gathered all the emails and numbers into a spread sheet and taken a printout to the supermarket to fill in the grids. Then I used the same grids for the next 3 years and 7 months. Now I could see that I had put Jims numbers with Martin’s pick and Carla ‘s numbers were on the next line. 3 years and 7 months of joking with the lottery ticket lady. I had the wrong numbers all along. Technically it didn’t matter because the odds were the same for any combination. Carla screamed ‘This was the winning ticket! You bought a losing ticket! How can the odds be the same?!’ I couldn’t go back to work, one by one they came to our house and cursed us both.

My fiancée couldn’t take it. She asked me to leave, that’s what wakes me up, every night, every day. We were going to get married. For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part. We didn’t even make it to the altar.

I watched as the photographer directed the guests and took the pictures. Eventually they finished up and moved on, happily walking into the life I should have had. I wished them well.

21 May 2018