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Powerball Fever

By GiGi Dane

My arm ached from shoulder to fingertips. The traffic had been heavy with countless variations of give me five on pump seven and fifteen Powerball tickets. The promise of three hundred and sixty million dollars infected everyone. Blow a few bucks on beer and the rest on fantasy. Have some hope with those cigarettes. Slurp some possibilities with that soda.

Stretching my jaw between good luck smiles, I grew weary of the faces that watched me so intently. Like I had some miracle to grant. I'd sold a thousand sets of hopeful numbers before it started feeling dirty. My hands grew heavier as I took wrinkled bills from truck drivers, mothers with kids begging for candy bars, dirty-haired winos, neatly dressed secretaries and everyone else. No optimist was denied her fantasy. No desperate soul was forbidden his hope.

Mostly they seemed to say what the hell, but a few had desperate hope in their eyes. Some joked sell me the winner and I'll give you twenty chances to do so. Others promised I'll come back and buy you that Mustang you've been dreaming of. Some begged I need to take care of my kids somehow.

I kept the patter light and lied my smile on. Whaddaya think? I got the winner here? Could be, could be. I got a chance? As good as anyone's. Can't win if you don't play. Cheap thrill. Hope is addictive.

But it's a lie, my eyes say. You aren't going to win. Keep your money in your pocket.  But no one sees because greed and need have mated into a maybe and that maybe could become an upside down world, where they are on top.

At the end of my shift, I added my own twenty to the till and rang up my own small hope.

Copyright © 2002 GiGi Dane

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