Oliver Jones

Saturday 31st of July.
Oliver Jones’ flat…

“Yeah, it’s about right,” he thought, “waking up on the first day of the weekend with a blasting headache even when you haven’t had a single drop of alcohol”. He closed his eyes again and tried to pretend this was not a Saturday. Perhaps he could trick the headache of fucking off. After fifteen minutes of fruitlessly trying he gave up and very slowly, as if trying not to activate a motion sensor in the room, slid off the bed and in one fluid motion slid his feet into his slippers.

With half closed eyes he dragged himself into his kitchen and turned on the coffee machine. “That’s just brilliant,” he mumbled to nobody in particular .“No headaches during the week, none, nada, zilch! Why now?” The coffee machine decided to interrupt him with a loud gurgling noise. “Shhhh,” he hissed. “Not so loud!” His brain felt as if it was lit on fire. Literally hearing his blood flowing through the vessels in his head, he was sure it was about to explode. 

And experience taught him that this is what his weekend would look like. Come Monday, though, when it is time for him to go back to his meaningless job, he will feel fresh as a cucumber and there will be no sign of this hellish headache. If only his salary would make up for the bloody crap he had to go through during the week. He hated his job, he hated his boss and he couldn’t stand his colleagues. There was nothing he could think of that made all of this worth it. He felt lost and miserable.

Just as he poured himself a hot, steaming cup of coffee and grabbed his bowl of cereal, a screeching, loud noise stabbed his ears and pierced his brain. The pain, so severe, it caused him to freeze in one place. It took everything he had to not drop the coffee and his breakfast. The doorbell rang again. He placed his breakfast on the coffee table and went to open the front door.

“Gooooooood morning!” exclaimed an awfully chirpy girl, who had the audacity to be smiling at him.

“Whatchuwant?” he grumbled through gritted teeth.

“Hi!” she shouted unnecessarily loud. “Do you want to change your life?”

“Whot?” he whispered, eyes turning into slits.

“Are you sick of working every day and barely making the month? Are you ready to take things into your own hands and change your future?” was her reply, slightly bouncing on her heels with each word.

“Listen, little girl, either get to the point or stop wasting my time,” looking at this happy, energetic girl was making him physically ill.

“I am selling lottery tickets, sir! The prize has risen to 100 million pounds!” She said, her smile was so wide, he thought the top of her head would separate from the bottom any minute.

“Oh for fuck sake, lottery? Are you bloody kidding me?” He shouted and regretted it immediately. His head pounded, his vision blurred. He didn’t let the girl’s shocked stare stop him from shutting the door in her face. Muttering obscene words he dragged himself back to his breakfast.

After eating half of his cereal he took a load of painkillers and sat motionless on the couch until the headache subsided enough for him to take a shower and get dressed. Groceries list in hand he made his way to his car. As he was about to start the engine a bus passing by honked. Outraged, he gave the bus a dirty look and flipped it off for good measure. The vehicle had an advertisement slapped all over its sides. It read “Take your life into your own hands today! Play the lottery and win the grand prize!” Risking worsening his headache he rolled his eyes at the pathetic ad and drove off to the supermarket.

Strange things kept happening on the way. People wearing signs with advertisements kept popping here and there. Billboards were erected all around London with huge letters saying “Win the big 100!!!” and the worst of all, almost every aisle in the supermarket advertised that you can conveniently grab lottery tickets while you shop and pay for them as you check out.

He sighed deeply, unable to believe people who actually got caught into this scam. “Whatever,” he thought to himself “It will be over one week from Sunday.” Determined to ignore the craze over the lottery he kept to his list, up to the point he decided to get a six pack. At least now there would be a good reason to have a headache. On top of everything else, the cashier was so determined to sell him tickets he had to threaten with talking to the manager. Oliver wanted to punch the cashier in the stupid, smiling face, but the mere fact there was a line of people waiting behind him stopped him from satisfying this urge.

The next week proved to be even more difficult to keep his resolution. If he didn’t have to go to the office he would stay home and not go out until it was over. He didn’t remember it being so weird last time. It almost seemed he had fallen into another dimension where everyone and everything was determined to make him spend money he didn’t have. The pressure was so high he actually kept thinking of the numbers he would play if he had bought a ticket.

Sunday 8th of August,
Oliver Jones’ flat…

“02 10 15 27 45 07* 09*,” he caught himself chanting while preparing his dinner. He shook his head “Pfft, this is ridiculous. One could go crazy from all this hype. Glad they will announce the winners soon so everything will go back to normal.” He took his plate and placed it on the coffee table. On the telly a beautiful girl was speaking without a sound. He smiled to himself “If only I had a mute button in real life,” and pointing the remote at the tv he pressed the mute button again.

“And now ladies and gentlemen. The moment we have all been waiting for,” said the girl and the balls started swirling inside their glass container. 

“The first number is 45,” she announced as she grabbed the ball with manicured fingers and displayed it to the camera. 

“The second number is 10” and again the ball with number ten was displayed with a dashing smile. 

“The third number is 02,” Oliver caught himself staring at the tv with his mouth open, fork suspended in midair. 

“The fourth number is 27,” clarified the girl as she placed the ball on the display next to the other three. 

“What the fuck?” he whispered to himself. 

“And the fifth number is 15,” she displayed the number.

“No way,” he shouted, food from his fork plopping on his rug. “This is bollocks! Some kind of a sick joke, right?”

“Congratulations to the winners!” The girl on the telly said “Now we will draw the numbers for the grand prize of 100 million pounds.” The balls started bouncing around in the glass container.

“The first lucky star number is 09,” announced the heartless girl.

“What?!” Oliver screamed.

“And the second lucky star number is 07,” she informed.

He stood up, the fork fell on the plate with a loud clang. “This is not happening!” He croaked as he held his head in disbelief. “These are MY numbers,” he shouted. “MY FUCKING NUMBERS!” In his rage Oliver flipped the plate and all his food scattered around the room, grabbed the can of beer and threw it at the wall. Then he stood there, frozen.

After what seemed like an hour, but it was actually 20 seconds he whispered “I can’t fucking believe this,” as he desperately sunk back on his couch.

In this very moment many miles above, so high even beyond the clouds…

“I told you he will miss his chance again!” exclaimed Hygieia.

“But I sent so many signs this time!” sighed Plutus. “I even went down to Earth and first tried selling him lottery tickets on his doorstep. Then I tried to sell some to him in the supermarket!”

“Haha, what about those bus ads? I thought it was a brilliant idea! You tried everything, little brother, obviously even you can’t help this one.” Hygieia said, patting her brother’s head with a gentle smile.

“I guess after ten years of trying I should give up,” Plutus said, deflated. He took the parchment with the drawing and history of Oliver Jones and looked at the back. There was a long list of names. All the gods and goddesses who, before him, tried to help this poor, lost soul.
Scanning the list there were so many of his brothers and sisters. The first one to try was his sister Tyche. If the goddess of luck cannot do it, what chance did he have? Defeated, Plutus scribbled his name at the end of the list, turned the parchment and stared at Oliver’s face for a while. Moving his pen underneath Oliver’s name, he sighed again and scribbled:

“The man whom even the gods couldn’t help.”