Today's #flashfiction Last Second Lottery

“A fool and his money are soon parted.”

Mr. T* #quote

CJ is coming over this weekend so that'll be a nacho bowl of fun served alongside a hamburger of shenanigans. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Last Second Lottery

          Fredrick won the lottery at a nice age of 85. He always bought ten tickets as a tradition ever since he could gamble and lost every year. His father was a gambling addict and Fredrick told him that if his Dad would stop gambling alone they would do this together every year. The father's compulsive want for the rush of gambling was satisfied by waiting every year for the lottery(to his addiction it didn't care if he won or lost, only the anticipation satisfied him.) After his father's death               Fredrick simply kept on the tradition as a sort of dedication to his old man.

And it paid off. But unfortunately at the time Fredrick already only had a year or two to live according to his doctors. So where would the money go. The first impulse would be to pass it down to family or send it off to charity.

           But he had no family left at that old age, he married, but no children, and his wife passed several years back. He thought about charities and where he would send it, but then it entered his mind as to what his dad would do with the money. He remembered a long time ago when he asked him,

          “What would you want to do with the money if we won?”

          “Why, I'd do something crazy or big with my share,” he told Fredrick. “I can make a living on my own. When you have that kind of money you have the opportunity to do something crazy or big to be remembered.”

           Fredrick thought about his father's words and came to a decision. He would do something crazy. Crazy enough for his father to appreciate. His money did go to charity... in a way. He contributed it all to N.A.S.A. to help fund the advancement of science. in exchange for one thing. That his ashes be sent into space. It didn't matter where they went or what mission they were on, as long as they didn't fall back to Earth. He preferred they be sent into the Sun, but if they decided they just wanted to release him to drift off somewhere that was fine too. He won a grand enough lottery that this was done and N.A.S.A. had money left over. In cosmic hindsight though, what Fredrick's father meant by “crazy” was blowing the money to buy some really fancy art like authentic Picasso and drawing mustaches on it.