The Winning Ticket

Life has been so unfair to Alabi right from his birth; he didn't know who his parent were because his dad had fled from his responsibilities when he learnt his mum was pregnant with him, his mum managed to carry his pregnancy to term, but as soon as he was given birth to, she had wrapped him in an old ankara wrapper and dropped him in front of St. alphonsus catholic church, not minding his cries she turned without looking back.

He had to live in different foster homes at different stages of his life until he became an adult. Despite the hardships, Alabi's spirit remained unbroken. He worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, always holding onto the hope that someday his life would take a turn for the better. Somehow, he managed to learn different basic workmanship. Every day, he would always go from door to door looking for who had anything to fix in their homes and managed to make little tokens to take care of his basic needs of feeding, rent etc but it was never enough for him to pursue his dreams of going to a higher institution and this day was more trying, as no one had anything to fix in their homes, he had moved around his neighbourhood yet no luck.

Walking back to his home, he met Calculus, a popular madman in the community. As usual, he was dressed in a tattered suit and a disheveled tie around his neck with three-quarter trousers, which had long lost their original color. He was with his long exercise book, scribbling some random formulas on it as he walked, and sometimes paused to stare at the sky, as if taking a cue. Rumours had it that he became mentally deranged because he read too many books and his brilliance was too much for him to handle. He would often help students with their difficult assignments while they gave him notebooks or biros as a reward.

"My very good friend, why are you looking so downcast today?" Calculus started talking to Alabi, who had tried to pass him by silently to go suffer his hunger in peace. All he had was the money he promised to pay his Landlord, which he had not completed. He thought he would manage to complete it today, but no one was willing to offer him a job.

He tried to ignore calculus and just gave him a nod, still going on his way, but calculus seemed to have his time, and walked side by side with him, still scribbling some numbers on his note, then he teared a piece and handed it to Alabi, "take my friend, you need this" he said, forcefully placing the piece of paper in Alabi's palm and took a turn back to where he was headed before.

Opening it up, he read out the numbers calculus had written on the piece of paper and wondered if calculus ever thought of anything else than figures. Just then, he remembered how someone had once testified to having won the lottery after playing the lottery with numbers given to him by a madman. Having a double thought whether to risk his house rent money or throw the piece of paper away and just go on his way, passing by the lottery outlet, on a whim, he decided to buy a ticket, just for the thrill of it, he choosed the numbers calculus had earlier written for him, putting in half of his rent money and walked out thinking if he had just doubled his problems or made a good risk, either ways he still would have to spend the night hungry.

The next day, Alabi was on his way to run some errands when he stopped by the lottery outlet to check the winning numbers. His heart skipped a beat as he matched the numbers on his ticket to the ones on the board. He had won! Alabi couldn't believe his eyes. The numbers given to him by calculus had matched all the numbers.

With trembling hands, Alabi walked back into the outlet to confirm his win. The vendor's face lit up with a smile as he scanned his ticket. "You're a winner, my friend!" he exclaimed. Alabi's life was about to change in ways he never thought possible. When he was told the amount he had hit, it was a jackpot win and a rare one, as it was hard to hit all six numbers.

As news of his win spread, Alabi's phone began to ring nonstop. Friends and family members he didn't know he had started to emerge, even his so called mum and dad, Alabi couldn't believe they were alive all this years and didn't bother to check on him until now because of his new found wealth, Alabi didn't care again about them, to him they were dead and gone, he was too busy thinking about all the good he could do with his newfound wealth and also leave his dreams of improving himself academically.

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