THE WINNING TICKET

THE WINNING TICKET



Bill Smith had and like probably the majority of the population of planet earth endured a shitter of a life.
From day one, William Smith had been prematurely born. Which meant there were various complications in so fact there wasn’t enough oxygen circulating around young William’s brain. Which of course meant that William would be cursed with learning difficulties for the rest of his life.
Indeed, soon after William was born and Mr Smith realised they had, what he deemed “a damaged package,” William Smith senior skipped the nest and disappeared along with a local prostitute, allegedly.

Mrs Smith (Rita) managed as best as she could and two years after Bill senior had gotten the jitters, she met and married another man.
Horace Oliver Black, was is name and Rita met Horace quite by chance.
It was whilst pushing young William in a cheap second hand buggy and in the pouring rain, that a wheel fell off the buggy and now struggling to fix the wheel along came Horace.
Gallantly and with a chivalrous attitude Rita thought only existed in the movies, Horace manfully scooped up the buggy and carried a somewhat startled looking William all the way home.
Well as you can imagine one thing led to another and about six months after that chance encounter Rita and Horace got hitched.

The years rolled by and Horace along with his mum Rita, treated young William like a prince, that was until the hand of fate yet again decided to slap William Smith and rather hard.
On William’s 17th Birthday and just as he was about to go to work at the local rubbish tip, Bill, who as he preferred to be called now had the shock of his life!
On hearing a knock at the door, Bill opened it and then kindly invited the nice Policeman in.
A few more moments later Bill was wearing a confused look on his face, apparently his Mother had unfortunately been involved in a multiple pile up and suffered fatal injuries.
When Bill was asked about any other family members who he could contact, Bill mentioned Horace.
However, strangely enough and just like his real father, Horace just seemed to disappear into thin air.

In fact Bill was beginning to think this was the normal thing to happen, after being informed of his biological Father’s sudden rapid exit, mercifully, Rita omitted the real reason Bill senior had gotten cold feet.
A few days later, Rita was buried and what few relatives Bill had, weren’t either interested or the ones that were, decided they weren’t once they found out there was no last will and testament.
This was just the beginning of Bill Smith’s miserable existence and from this day forward things went rapidly downhill.

Bill managed to reach 20 years old before his first fight. Someone at work called him a retard and Bill subsequently picked up the nearest yard brush and broke it over that person’s head.
Because this individual suffered multiple fractures and according to the aggrieved solicitors, massive trauma inducing behavioural disorders, Bill was immediately dismissed.
Bill struggled, being out of work is hard enough when you have all your faculties about you, one would imagine it’s a whole a lot harder when you haven’t, as was in poor Bill’s case.
Bill lived of course in the family home, but this was a rented property and because Bill didn’t receive any help, or the fact no one wanted to help, the rent didn’t get paid and as a result Bill soon became homeless.
Bill lived for several years in the many various doss houses which seem to appear to be everywhere until one day someone else labelled Bill as a dumb son of a bitch that should have been injected at birth.
Bill was in the kitchen at the time peeling potatoes and at precisely the moment he was called those unkind words, Bill took it on himself to shove the potato peeler he was using at the time up said protagonists left nostril.

10 years later and fresh out of prison (“it would have been a lot longer if the judge hadn’t taken pity on the fact he deemed Bill educationally challenged)” Bill tried again to gamefully accept the great challenge of life itself.

Not a chance, it seemed that fate along with adversity were around every corner and no matter how hard Bill Smith tried to get back on the ladder of life, he just kept falling off or was pushed off.
Bill turned to booze and also at this stage of his life (thirty seven) this was what surely was “always” meant to happen.? Bill, without wishing to be unkind, just wasn’t bright enough or capable enough to know all about destiny and fate.

But one day and after waking up, nearly freezing to death on one of the many local municipal park benches, Bill leaned over to reach the three quarter full bottle of aeroplane fuel strength cider.
Bill didn’t notice it at first, his already naturally confused state of mind was only exacerbated by the constant infusion of brain destroying disinfectant, more commonly known as super strength cider.
But there, affixed to his chest, was what looked like some kind of lottery ticket!

Blinking both eyes and now sitting up, Bill plucked the unused ticket off the rather grubby overcoat he was wearing and proceeded to stare at what actually “was” some kind of prize giving lottery ticket.
Even though Bill Smith had suffered learning difficulties his entire life, he wasn’t illiterate and proceeded to read the inscription on the front of the ticket.
RICHES BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS!! A FORTUNE BEYOND EVEN YOUR WILDEST IMAGINATION!! TREASURE THAT YOU CAN ONLY DREAM ABOUT!! AND ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SAY YES OR NO???

Just below where the bold type written inscription was, were some more bold capital lettered words.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL??

Directly below those last six words were two scratch boxes, above each box were the words, yes, or no!!
Bill put the ticket in his pocket and though his mind had sort of been changed into mush by the acid strength cider, he still thought the ticket wasn’t your normal run of the mill lotto ticket.

About an hour later and after Bill had successfully managed to avoid the park warden, who incidentally had made it his personal business to hound Bill as much as he legally could, Bill settled himself for breakfast.
This consisted of a mouldy old lump of cheese and a newly found discarded can of Kestrel super and though slightly diluted by rain water, still had enough in it for the desired kick.
Biting into the mouldy cheese, Bill suddenly remembered he had an apple he had recently stolen off a fruit and veg barrow in the market.
Reaching into the grubby overcoat, one of very few possessions Bill owned, instead of a stolen apple he produced the strange lottery ticket!
“Ummm,” murmured Bill, “well in for a penny in for a pound I suppose.”
Placing both the can of hooch and cheese to one side, Bill wiped a hand on his pants which incidentally were just as threadbare as the overcoat and then using an overgrown nail, proceed to scratch one of the boxes.

WHOOSH!! The second Bill Smith had scratched the box he had selected, it just seemed to burst into flames and Bill hurriedly let it go.
He leaned forward to look at the ground where the ticket had fallen, bizarrely there wasn’t anything there, it was as though the strange ticket had just literally burst into flames and disappeared!!
After a stunned few seconds Bill did what he had been doing for most of his wretched life and that was throw both arms up into the air and cry.. “Why does this always happen to me?”

A few seconds later and just as Bill was about finish the rest of the mouldy cheese, a hand appeared out of nowhere and gently placed itself on Bill’s left shoulder!
A startled Bill attempted to jump up, it was another tramp after his cheese, well he wasn’t going to get it without a fight, that’s for sure.

The hand stayed upon Bill’s shoulder and though the person that owned the hand wasn’t a large person, there was incredible strength here and that was something Bill Smith respected.
Bill looked up into the strange dark suited man’s eyes and said, “who the hell are you?”
At those words, those eyes, which seemed to be a strange emerald green colour flashed and were accompanied by equally amazing white teeth.
Then the dark suited stranger spoke.
“Why Bill, I would have thought it quite evident who I am?”
Bill still wore a confused look, then the man released the hand and came around the bench then seated himself alongside Bill.
Still smiling the dark suited green eyed man began to speak again.
“You are a very lucky man Bill Smith.”
“Am I?” Said Bill.
“Oh yes,” replied the stranger, “though you haven’t always had luck have you Bill?”
The stranger leaned a little closer this time, the smile intensifying.
“How, errr, how do you know my name when I haven’t even met you before?” Asked Bill, though for some rather odd reason Bill wasn’t afraid.

The stranger held out an immaculately well manicured hand and said, “how rude of me Bill, allow me to introduce myself, my name is,” he paused and the smile intensified again, “well I seem to have a whole bunch of names, but I suppose I’ll leave that one up to you Bill.”
Bill, still looking a tad confused replied by answering that he still hadn’t a clue as to what the man was on about.
The man suddenly stopped smiling and this time Bill was a little afraid.
“Cast your mind back to that lottery ticket Bill,” Bill did but he was still none the wiser.
“What answer did you give on the ticket Bill, which box did you scratch off?”
Bill suddenly realised who this man was, even “he” had managed to put two and two together, but that was impossible, everyone knew “there was no such thing as the devil!”
As Bill thought those words the man began to smile again and the edginess that was there before seemed to evaporate.
“But that’s impossible,” cried Bill, “there’s no such thing as the devil, I don’t believe in the devil,” shouted an incredulous Bill Smith.

The green eyed dark suited man laughed this time and it seemed to Bill like no ordinary laugh, it was bone chilling as well as terrifying!
“Really,” answered the still laughing man and suddenly, like magic, in the strange man’s left hand appeared a lottery ticket, just like the one Bill had scratched off earlier.
But this ticket had been used and where the two boxes said YES or NO, the box that said YES, had been scratched!
The man leaned even closer to Bill this time and Bill was nearly overwhelmed by the foul stench emanating from the green eyed man’s mouth, then he spoke again.

“Apparently Bill Smith and according to this ticket, YOU DO BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL!!”

THE CONCLUSION

For 40 more years and shortly after that bizarre meeting with the strange green eyed man, Bill Smith’s life turned around.
For some strange inexplicable reason two more lottery tickets turned up in Bill’s possession, though these actually were genuine National Lottery Tickets and one was for the Euro millions, the other for the main British Lotto.
Both were winning jackpot tickets and both brought wealth and fortune to what up until that chance meeting in the park had been a horrible wretched life for poor Bill Smith.
Well all I’ll say is, the guy deserved it and no one should have to endure the kind of bad luck in life that Bill suffered and everyone, wherever they maybe just surely deserves that little bit of luck??

Forty years later

A bent cloaked figure headed down a long torch lit tunnel and entered into what was a large cave, proceeding to head toward the rear of the cave the figure stopped and opened what seemed to be a large shelved storage area.
Row upon row of large glass jars were lined up along what appeared to be hundreds, if not thousands of these shelves.
Reaching into the folds of its cloak, the bent figure produced another one of these strange glass jars.
Placing it into a space on one of the many shelves, the figure stepped back a little and chuckled.
“Welcome home William Smith!”
There, inside the glass jar was the head of Bill Smith and his face seemed to be set in a silent twisted scream…FOR ETERNITY!!!!


THE END