The Numb in Numbers

-redemption as a twenty two-year-old

While driving to the mall in 1984, I inherited a strange notion to look to my immediate left. My sight locked onto a 7-Eleven convenience store. Its triteness made me wonder why I even bothered to take my eyes off of the road. As I passed the 7-Eleven, however, one of the more unusual experiences of my life took root. A voice in my head shouted out a three digit number. The voice spooked me because it wasn’t mine. It was a disembodied male voice. He spoke with an authoritative quality, as if every number mattered. Every hair on my body stood at attention. Call it the numb in numbers.

I turned the car around to investigate the immediate area and any significance to the three digit number. Was I going crazy? Driving myself to a mental hospital seemed like a future sentinel event. I reasoned that the voice couldn’t have been a ghost because it took place in my head.

Nevertheless, I parked the car in front of the 7-Eleven store to observe my surroundings. I started to feel at ease which did wonders for my mental health. The loony bin would wait but I still needed to unravel the mystery. While patrons came and went in ordinary commerce, the LOTTERY sign in the window drew my attention. For all intents and purposes, it seemed to be a personal marker and not just an advertisement for the general public. I turned away to view other things in my environment but my gaze kept settling on the lottery sign. Since my mother had recently been receiving winning lottery numbers through osmosis, I decided to test second generational luck. I waltzed into the store and approached the cashier behind the counter.

“I normally don’t do this sort of thing.” I admitted.

“What spend this much money?” wisecracked the snickering cashier.

“I meant play the lottery.”

I went out to a bar later that night to wager the medicinal effects of alcohol on a rattled psyche. Bar side, my thoughts occasionally returned to the voice. For all the mental energy I exerted, I still couldn’t make sense out of the X-File incident. When I left the bar short of inebriation and broke, the lottery ticket remained the only parcel in my wallet.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I learned that the lottery number hit in the exact order that I received them. Hocus Pocus these numbers weren't bogus! For reasons I’ll never know, a voice from beyond made me several hundred dollars richer. Even stranger, I have never heard that strange voice again. Whenever I am short on money, I actually long for that voice to resurface to scare the bejesus out of me. Hell, I’d take Adolph Hitler’s voice if he could cough up a Swiss bank account.