The lottery win

The lottery win
a short short story by K. Barnes

"Good evening ladies and gentleman, and welcome to Jackpot! Today in the pot: 30 Million pounds!"

The camera view followed the TV presenter as she walked to a big, transparent pot filled with dozens of white paper sheets. She smiled into the camera, showing off her large, gleaming white teeth. She stuck her hand into the pot and after a few seconds of rummaging she drew her hand out of the opening. Between her index finger and thumb she held a small paper sheet. She strode back into the focus of the camera and unfolded the paper. Then she looked back into the camera and showed off her teeth once more.

"Today's numbers are 27-19-22-23-25! To find out if you are a lucky winner, go to our website and type in your numbers! Goodnight and-"

Karl stared at the TV screen. Then he looked down to the lottery ticket in his hands.

"What the f-" he whispered to himself. He needed a moment to fully realize what he was holding in his hands.
"I'm such a lucky bastard!" he shouted and jumped up from his swivel chair at the desk in his work room, where he had spent most of his time recently. Other than you would think an author would spend his time in his comfortable, with dark wooden furniture and a big, classic fireplace equipped home office, he did not spend it by writing books. Which is kind of counterproductive if you are an author living only from the amount of books you sell. It is not that he didn't want to write, it's more that he can't write.

Writer's block. The nightmare of every author. And also the nightmare of the author's agent and the author's publisher. In fact, a writer's block is the nightmare of everyone earning money by selling books.

So Karl had spent the last weeks with having serious e-mail and phone conversations with his agent, which ended in angry, inappropriate insults most of the time. But the more he talked and discussed about his writer's block the more he fell into a depressive mood, which will hopefully come to an end now.

"I fucking won 30 Million pounds!" Karl still couldn't believe it. He has never had so much money at once. Of course he had already earned one or two pounds by selling his books, but of course this does not compare to such a huge amount of money.
Karl held the ticket up, kissed it and said thank you to his writer's block, which was the reason he needed money and decided to buy the lottery ticket. He sat down on his blue velvet covered swivel chair, turned around to his desk and opened his laptop. It took him three times to type in the name of the website correctly, as his fingers were shaking in excitement. He needed another five minutes to find the right section where he could type in his numbers, but after that he was closer to 30 Million pounds than he has ever been before.
"27-19-22-23-25" Karl said quietly to himself as he typed in his lucky numbers. He proof-read them twice, then he pressed "Enter".