06-23-2020, 01:21 AM
This is my favorite part.
The part that makes it all worth while.
Living in a hotel in a new city, blending in, watching, waiting for the perfect person is time consuming.
Trying to live in a world that I no longer belong to is sometimes boring, sometimes lonely.
But what is coming next makes the waiting worth it.
I am sitting in a tired little restaurant in the middle of a tired little town in Arizona. The waitress has already been paid and the coffee is getting cold... almost as cold as the eggs I was served earlier.
The little red Honda I had purchased from a newspaper ad is parked outside, packed and ready. Ten minutes from now I will leave, start the car and drive to… wherever I feel like going next. The few thousand dollars stashed under the passenger seat will get me there, a new false identity will hide me when I get to the next hunting place.
The annoying “ding-DING” of the front door announces the arrival of my pick.
She is followed in by a caricature of a lawyer. A cheap suit filled by a man with a bad comb-over and beady eyes.
She sits down two tables from me and he takes the chair across from her. They accept the steaming coffee offered, decline breakfast and the lawyer (What kind of last name is Smelty?) pulls a binder out of his briefcase.
Mrs. Carla Swanson (I KNOW her now) asks the obvious question. “Why did you call to meet me here? Am I in some sort of trouble?”
“It’s about your finances, Carla. It has been brought to our attention that you are quite late on your house payments, your car is in danger of repossession and the bank has informed us that you have, well, no funds. Your savings account has dwindled to nothing in the last year, all your monies are going to medical bills and there is no real way you are ever going to get out of debt. These are bad times for you.”
Carla slowly lowered her cup of coffee to the table with shaking hands.
“My daughter has been battling leukemia for two years. TWO years! My husband is working two jobs and I work when I can. I have to take her to her appointments and care for her. We have done everything we can to pay the bills. We’re not criminals.”
She leaned over the table and stared straight into his eyes.
“I don’t care what I lose and I don’t care about the bills. We’re good people and we will make do. My daughter is going to be OK and that’s all that matters.”
“As for you and the ‘banks’, you can all go to hell. We’ll pay what we can when we can because that’s all we can do. So what do you want from me? Serving me papers? Taking away something? What is it you want?”
Mr. Smelty reached over the table and gave her the binder.
“Please read through this Carla.”
Carla sighed, took the binder and started reading.
A thrill of excitement shot through me.
THIS was my favorite part.
She read, stopped, read… the binder fell from nerveless fingers onto the table, nearly spilling her coffee.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No Carla. Your house is paid off, your car is paid off, your medical bills are paid off and there is a rather handsome amount put aside for your daughter’s college tuition, should she choose to go."
“Are there any questions?”
Carla blinked tears from her eyes and in a trembling voice asked “how is this possible?”
Mr. Smelty told her exactly what I had told him to say.
“Because someone thinks you deserve it.”
I left the tired little restaurant, got in the car and drove out of the tired little town.
To find my next town, my next pick.
What just happened, you ask?
What actually happened was years ago.
I won the lottery.
After some careful thought, I decided that what I really wanted to do was help.
Help those who needed it… help a decent person at a bad time. To give because I can without any thought of recognition or reward.
Although the recognition part I’ve had some trouble with.
When I had first started my journey years ago I left a note with a cashier’s check explaining why they deserved it… words of encouragement to someone who needed it.
I rethought that after the first few times… I did not want my handwriting matched to who I once was.
However, dozens of analysts have since scoured over what I had written and although some of their hypothesis were absurd, they all agreed on one thing… that I was a woman.
So the newspapers and tabloids named me Lady Bountiful.
As a name, it will do.
For now.
The End.
(from ATS writing contest. Topic "You Won the Lottery")
The part that makes it all worth while.
Living in a hotel in a new city, blending in, watching, waiting for the perfect person is time consuming.
Trying to live in a world that I no longer belong to is sometimes boring, sometimes lonely.
But what is coming next makes the waiting worth it.
I am sitting in a tired little restaurant in the middle of a tired little town in Arizona. The waitress has already been paid and the coffee is getting cold... almost as cold as the eggs I was served earlier.
The little red Honda I had purchased from a newspaper ad is parked outside, packed and ready. Ten minutes from now I will leave, start the car and drive to… wherever I feel like going next. The few thousand dollars stashed under the passenger seat will get me there, a new false identity will hide me when I get to the next hunting place.
The annoying “ding-DING” of the front door announces the arrival of my pick.
She is followed in by a caricature of a lawyer. A cheap suit filled by a man with a bad comb-over and beady eyes.
She sits down two tables from me and he takes the chair across from her. They accept the steaming coffee offered, decline breakfast and the lawyer (What kind of last name is Smelty?) pulls a binder out of his briefcase.
Mrs. Carla Swanson (I KNOW her now) asks the obvious question. “Why did you call to meet me here? Am I in some sort of trouble?”
“It’s about your finances, Carla. It has been brought to our attention that you are quite late on your house payments, your car is in danger of repossession and the bank has informed us that you have, well, no funds. Your savings account has dwindled to nothing in the last year, all your monies are going to medical bills and there is no real way you are ever going to get out of debt. These are bad times for you.”
Carla slowly lowered her cup of coffee to the table with shaking hands.
“My daughter has been battling leukemia for two years. TWO years! My husband is working two jobs and I work when I can. I have to take her to her appointments and care for her. We have done everything we can to pay the bills. We’re not criminals.”
She leaned over the table and stared straight into his eyes.
“I don’t care what I lose and I don’t care about the bills. We’re good people and we will make do. My daughter is going to be OK and that’s all that matters.”
“As for you and the ‘banks’, you can all go to hell. We’ll pay what we can when we can because that’s all we can do. So what do you want from me? Serving me papers? Taking away something? What is it you want?”
Mr. Smelty reached over the table and gave her the binder.
“Please read through this Carla.”
Carla sighed, took the binder and started reading.
A thrill of excitement shot through me.
THIS was my favorite part.
She read, stopped, read… the binder fell from nerveless fingers onto the table, nearly spilling her coffee.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No Carla. Your house is paid off, your car is paid off, your medical bills are paid off and there is a rather handsome amount put aside for your daughter’s college tuition, should she choose to go."
“Are there any questions?”
Carla blinked tears from her eyes and in a trembling voice asked “how is this possible?”
Mr. Smelty told her exactly what I had told him to say.
“Because someone thinks you deserve it.”
I left the tired little restaurant, got in the car and drove out of the tired little town.
To find my next town, my next pick.
What just happened, you ask?
What actually happened was years ago.
I won the lottery.
After some careful thought, I decided that what I really wanted to do was help.
Help those who needed it… help a decent person at a bad time. To give because I can without any thought of recognition or reward.
Although the recognition part I’ve had some trouble with.
When I had first started my journey years ago I left a note with a cashier’s check explaining why they deserved it… words of encouragement to someone who needed it.
I rethought that after the first few times… I did not want my handwriting matched to who I once was.
However, dozens of analysts have since scoured over what I had written and although some of their hypothesis were absurd, they all agreed on one thing… that I was a woman.
So the newspapers and tabloids named me Lady Bountiful.
As a name, it will do.
For now.
The End.
(from ATS writing contest. Topic "You Won the Lottery")
