Merlin Charter

James Shot of Opportunity

There I was looking down at it; I couldn't believe my eyes. I was looking down at a winning scratch ticket I had purchased at a gas station, saying I had won twenty thousand dollars. I was sitting down in amazement at my kitchen table, shaking under the light of a 60-watt bulb in pure excitement; An emotion I wasn't accustomed to. The walls in my little house reflected something else—drab emptiness with a damp orange glow coming through the curtains from the lamp posts outside. And the television in the other room flickering that I left on for company.