The magic book

It was a warm spring day and Balthazar had a spring in his step. He had a productive evening with his magic numbers written in his favorite black notebook. Balthazar saw numbers while he meditated. He discovered years earlier the numbers he would see, won in the lottery, he knew he'd have to find a way to keep organized, and bought his first black book and quickly bonded with it.

He couldn't imagine going anywhere without it.

When he was nervous or afraid he would grip it ever so tightly to calm him down.

His black book was his magic tome, his source of comfort and today he knew he had winning numbers written down in the book.

To this point he had won $1600, through meditation, but tonight he knew was different, somehow. He could feel it.

On his way to the local market he heard a loud bang and saw 2 cars collide in front of him Ever the helpful boy scout he set his book down, without thinking, to help the injured people.

While he was distracted with helping the injured motorist, his neighborhood nemesis, Zach, scooped up the book and ran.

Balthazar could tell, even while looking away, that the book was missing. He turned to see Zach running up the street with his book.

Balthazar knew the right thing to do was to help the motorist, but he desperately needed to get that book back.

Balthazar tended to the injured until he heard the ambulance sirens he said to the accident victims “I'm really sorry to leave you but I must go.” And he sped away in search of his good luck charm.

Running up the street, then up the alley, then up the next block running, running, running, nearly out of breath he continued in search of Zach and his book.

He caught a glimpse of Zach in the distance and bolted towards him.

Zach noticed Balthazar coming his way and started to run, Balthazar yelled at the top of his lungs “STOP HIM:. A bystander near Zach pulled at his shirt and held him until Balthazar arrived.

“What is going on” said the Good Samaritan?

Zach began yelling that he was taking the book Balthazar had stolen from him back, and Balthazar caused a car accident.

Balthazar grabbed the book from Zach's hands and said “You KNOW this is my book” and walked away.

With the days events weighing on his mind, Balthazar made his way to the market to purchase his retirement tickets.

On the way, his ex girlfriend Julie approached him and made small talk. “Hey you. I've missed you.”

Balthazar was surprised, she had ended their relationship and he had tried to win her back to no avail.

Why was she being nice to him now? She didn't know about his recent good fortune, no one did. He told no one.

“Well I have been around, what are you doing these days?” Inquired Balthazar.

“You've been on my mind for the past few days, I wanted to see if we could hang out sometime?”

Julie replied.

“Yea, I'd like that, I'm kinda busy right now, but call me later tonight.” Balthazar offered.

His day was getting better by the minute.

Once he got to the market he pulled out his book, studied the numbers, filled out the lottery slip.

“OK, we have 3, 5, 7, 12 and 25” he wrote on the slip.

Usually he would purchase other variations of numbers to hedge his bets, not today.

Today he didn't need to.

He purchased his ticket and went home.

Later that night he made himself a nice dinner and looked up the winning numbers for the lottery.

After he checked the winning numbers Julie called. She said “Hey it was good to see you today, Oh did you check the lottery numbers tonight?”

Balthazar said “Yea, they were

At this point the phone disconnected.