The Reluctant Prophet and Other Short Stories

I read that in a magazine while browsing through the rack at Li's market. I showed him the article. This was long before the comet was discovered, when one in 20,000 still seemed like preposterous odds.

'Look,' I said. 'Check that out.' I dropped the magazine on the counter.

Li put his beer down, put his glasses on, and peered at the article. His lips moved while he read.

'Very scary,' he said when he was finished, nodding and taking off his glasses.

'You know what's scary?' I asked. 'What's scary is the amount of money I've spent in the past year on instant lottery tickets. That's what's scary.'

I could tell by the look on his face he was confused. I enlightened him. I pointed to the rack of tickets he had next to the cash register. 'The odds of winning the grand prize on those instant tickets I buy every god damned day are one in eleven million,' I said. Then I repeated the figure, 'One in eleven million,' just so the numbers had some weight.

But Li was still confused. I pointed to the magazine. 'According to this, I've got a better chance of being killed by a falling rock from space than I do with those lottery tickets.'

Li shrugged. 'Somebody got to win,' he said, in his broken accent.

'Yes,' I agreed. 'But it probably won't be me. Look--' I pointed to the article again. 'I'm more likely to die in airplane disaster than I am to win a thousand dollars a week for life.'

He followed my pointing finger. He nodded and shrugged again, hesitant to say anything to contradict me.

'I don't even fly,' I said. 'I can't afford to fly, because I haven't won the lottery yet. And I probably still have a better chance of dying in an airplane disaster.'

'How?' Li asked.

'I don't know,' I said, calming a little. 'I haven't finished reading the article yet.'

'So you say you don't want your lottery tickets?'

'No,' I said. 'That's it. I'm out. I quit.'

'All right,' Li sighed.

'From now on it's just candy bars for me,' I said. I picked up a 100,000 Grand bar and put it on the counter.

'You sure you don't want your tickets?' Li said. His voice was tempting. 'Today could be the day,' he urged.

I shook my head. 'I'm not destined to have anything out of the ordinary happen to me,' I insisted, fumbling some change out of my pocket.

'You never know, Mr. Steve,' Li said. 'Every day winners are chosen.'

'So are the losers,' I said. 'And there's always more of them.'

'There are no losers,' Li said. 'Only winners who don't know it.'

I gave Li a blank look.

He pointed to the candy bar in my hand. 'You lost in lottery, you got candy bar. So, Mr. Steve, you won a candy bar today instead of losing lottery.'

'Huh,' I said, mulling it over in my head for a minute or two.

'It's all perspective,' he said, the word perspective sounding strange coming out of his mouth.

'I'll try to remember that,' I said, taking my change.

'Yes,' Li said, smiling and bowing slightly, almost unconsciously. 'All perspective.'