It was a Friday, and David was parking his 2009 Honda Civic at the lottery office. In his hand he held the winning ticket to a $75 million dollar jackpot. He still could not believe his luck. After being down on his luck since he lost his job and his girlfriend had left him for his best friend, he decided to buy a Powerball lottery ticket. And to his surprise, he had won the jackpot.
But instead of calling his friends or family he had decided to keep his winnings a secret. He did not want anyone to find out about his sudden luck as they would surely ask him for a piece of the pie. Instead, he planned to continue working at his job and put his money into a conservative S&P 500 index fund.
When David got out of his car he saw a huge line that stretched outside of the office. In fact, it stretched so far outside of the office he could not see where it ended.
"Surely they could not all be winners," thought David.
David then asked someone in the line why they were there and they replied, "Why because I won the Powerball!"
Confused, David asked someone else and they replied the same way. In fact, everyone he asked replied the same way. As it turned out everyone in that line, a little over 2,000 people, was related and they had all bought lottery tickets, because 900 years ago a distant relative had a piece of paper with numbers on it. And these numbers turned out to be winning lottery numbers for the power ball.
As it turns out this relative had many children and he decided to share the secret of the numbers with his relatives in hopes they would bring his family riches. It just so happened that today was the day of the lottery ticket and all 2,000 members bought a ticket.
"Just my luck," thought David. "I am the unluckiest luckiest person in the world."
David's Car
Author's Notes: This story is a continuation of my week 7 story George Wins the Lottery. For this story I was inspired by the story of the Jewel that Satrajit had in Shri Krishna of Dwarka and other stories. In that story the jewel changed hands many times as people killed each other for it. I was intrigued by a story where people struggled against each other for a great prize, but in this story I added a twist. I decided to have the prize be split among 2,000 people so the true prize is not actually that large.
Bibliography: Shri Krishna of Dwarka and other stories by C. A. Kincaid, 1920
Hey Caleb,
ReplyDeleteYour story is pretty interesting. I haven’t read the original, but your story combined with your description of the original actually reminds me of an anime I started watching recently called Inuyasha. In it, there is a sacred jewel that everybody wants to get their hands on. One day, it gets shattered into thousands of pieces that are scattered throughout the land. Each piece still holds power, but it’s just a fragment of the original, and so everybody with a fragment is trying to get more pieces of the jewel.
Hi Caleb!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your story since it had such a twist at the end. I feel so bad for David! Funny enough, my dad's name is David and a few years ago he fell 14 feet off of a stage and broke his left arm into 11 pieces. He had other injuries from that as well. Luckily, he is perfectly fine now with just some plates and screws in his arm! Maybe the name David is an unlucky name :)
Hi Caleb, I really enjoyed reading your story! It created so much meaning that one’s ego should not get to them because they don’t know what the future really holds. Being grounded is very important. I wanted to keep reading more and more to find out what was going to happen next! It kept me on my toes! You did a good job!
ReplyDeleteHi Caleb,
ReplyDeleteWow, 2,000 is a huge family. I can totally see the parallel between the two stories though. I enjoy how you added your own modern day twist to it pertaining to the Power Ball rather than the Jewel in the original. The only criticism I have would be to elaborate more to the end. I feel like the mention of the 2,000 person family comes out of nowhere while reading your story.