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Mary couldn’t believe her eyes. The numbers matched – all of them. And the special number in red – it matched too! A few hours later, it was confirmed. The lady from the lottery commission had accepted the ticket, done the paperwork, and scheduled the press conference. Tomorrow, Mary would go from a broke single mom to a multi-millionaire. After taxes, she would receive $4 million dollars (or so) a year for the next 25 years. Visions of what she could buy danced around her head.

But first, she had to tell Jamie. He was young, and probably wouldn’t understand all the commotion over the next few days as news came out. Mary had braced herself for the media and her family, but Jamie wouldn’t stand a chance if she couldn’t talk to him about it today.

“Honey, Mommy’s got something to tell you”, she began.

“ooo-k”, he replied as he set aside the toy truck.

“Mommy played a game last week, and she won some money in it”. As she spoke, she hoped he wouldn’t remember the previous times she’d played the same game with different results.

“Why?”, he said.

Jamie was firmly in the ‘why’ stage of his development. Like most children he longed to draw out conversations with “whys” until the adult, her most of the time, couldn’t take it any more. When they’d get frustrated and leave, he’d laugh. It was a game, but she couldn’t play just now – she had to tell him the news.

“We can’t start with this Jamie”, she said firmly, “this is serious – you know what it means when Mommy says ‘serious'”. He did indeed know what it meant – it was a word reserved for when he got in trouble. He paused for a moment and Mary felt that she might have a chance at having the conversation.

“Why?”, he said with a grin. She decided to just go with it.

“Because Mommy needs you to understand what’s going to happen now”, she started.

“Why?”, another impish grin.

“Because this is big news honey”, she said.

“Why?”, a small chuckle.

“You’ll want to hear this Jamie”, she said with a bit of exasperation, “do you understand?”

“Why?”, he replied. She couldn’t take it – this was too big to play games over.

“Because this is going to change your life, my life, and the life of a lot of people we know”

All he said in reply was exactly what she expected “Why?”. But for some reason, the question hit her.

Why would her life have to change? Why would her son’s have to change? Tomorrow the press conference was supposed to be her victory day, the day to show the world that she could become something out of nothing – that she was in some way better now. But all she was going to be was richer. And that worried her.

She’d recently watched a show about lottery winners losing everything, and as she looked into the eyes of her son, Jamie, she made a decision to call the financial planner at her bank. The lady promised to help Mary set everything up for the long term, keeping her and Jamie with enough money to live comfortably, splurge occasionally, and never have to work again. Mary could raise her son, travel to see her family, and own her own home. It was all falling into place.

Winning the lottery was supposed to change her life into one of dramatics, but why should it? If freedom was what she sought, shouldn’t that include freedom from pressure to spend? After all, the wisdom of Jamie was evident over a number of conversations she’d have with friends over the next few days.

“You should buy a new car!”
“You should buy a boat!”
“You should buy your entire family something nice!”
“You should buy a new house!”

“Why?”

[SSDay]

The stairwell was dark, and all he could focus on was his heavy breathing. His heart raced faster than it had ever gone in his entire life, something he knew with certainty due to the heart rate monitoring watch he’d bought on a whim. He desperately tried to calm down, but how could he? He was about to die.

Up until one hour ago, he lived in a world where each day seemed to only get better than the last. He was 30 years old, had a wife who adored him, two children who were just old enough to be sweet and happy (but not quite old enough to cause heavy parental strife), and he had his job. His career was everything – so many years spent training with the older masters of the art, and so few precious months of being on his own. But he was doing well, building a name for himself in the industry, and until 1 hour prior, life was perfect.

“Yea, we’ll meet on that Thursday”, he told her with a smile. She looked across his desk and returned the gesture of friendship. She had just agreed to become his biggest client, and given his reputation as the rising star, she was not in the least bit worried.  She got up to leave, they shook hands, and she walked out. He walked around the desk and closed the door to his office. It was as he was drinking his soda he noticed the book.

It was a smallish, leather bound collection of less than 50 pages. It seemed, at a glance, like a small notebook, until one noticed the true age of it. The tattered pages revealed brown, oxidized ink. Elaborate penmanship, and a language he hadn’t seen before. It had, evidently, slipped from her bag as she rose up from the chair. He thought to call her immediately back to retrieve it, but with the meeting only a few days away, he turned his attention to other matters, she would get it back soon, and he could just pretend he hadn’t noticed it until later in the day.

A half hour passed uneventfully, until he heard the voices. The tinny sound of a familiar language, his own, echoed from where the book lie not more than 20 feet away. He walked over toward it, and discovered, to his surprise, a small speaker grill on the inside back cover of the book. It appeared to be something straight out of a spy shop, and the voices on the other end were hard to make out. He stood by the book for a moment, and contemplated his options. Listen to the voices now, or go back to work and leave them in peace.

30 minutes later, as he stood in that stairwell, he would wonder how he could have made the wrong choice in that moment. He had always followed his conscience in life, never done anything ‘bad’, ‘evil’ or even ‘disreputable’. He had earned all that he had, and over the last 30 minutes, he had destroyed all of that through nothing but simple listening.

The voices spoke of a plan, one sinister enough that he could scarcely believe his ears. She had returned through his office door at just the moment to see him lift the book up to his ear. She reached into her pocket and took out her phone, pressing a button on the side. Within moments he could see them approaching the front door, two floors below. She tried to stop him, but he ran, and hid.

And now he was losing it all. They would find him soon, it was only a matter of time in a building that size. There were no exits, no doors out, no windows safe to jump from, no magic helicopter on the roof that would take him away. This was reality, this was the way it would all turn out for him. 30 years. A family. Friends. A Future. All gone in a heart beat.

–

They found him 2 days later, the cause of death was easy to determine. Despite his young age, his heart had spiraled out of control. The woman and her associates were at his funeral, they paid their respects, and they left with not a single one speaking to the widow or children. It was unfortunate that he passed only part of the test. Everybody listens, but only a few are found to be trustworthy. It was a pity – his act of flight proved that he could make the quick decisions. If only his heart were in it, he would be starting his first assignment next week. It would have meant a comfortable life for him, his family, and even friends if he so chose – no sane person could ever refuse the offer they could have made. In the end he could have saved thousands, if he had only saved himself from what he had heard.

[SSDay]