Joe's fanfic (final)

 THE LOTTERY TICKET

 In summer, the road leading to Broadmeadows, a suburb of Melbourne, was creased with shades of trees.  The early morning sun filled the air with a touch of asphalt smell.  A mini-bus was happily galloping along the road, carrying not too many passengers, amongst them a young man of 23, dark skin, brown hair, wearing a T-shirt.  By his side sat a blue eyed, chestnut haired girl.  The young man was hilariously chatting to the girl about some nonsense.  At the instance she got on the bus, the young man smiling struck up conversation.  Soon she tittered unscrupulously, with her thick and curly hair fluctuating in the midst of her laughter.

"I have to get off now," the girl interrupted.  This young man also happened to alight at this stop and as they went in the same direction, he decided to walk with her.

Round the corner, they walked into a cafe with the awning displaying in front and sat down at a white plastic table.  The young man told the girl that he had recently graduated from the University of Melbourne in Physics, and now had a very satisfactory job.  At the moment, he was on his way to work in the laboratory in the suburb.  The girl also told him she had just graduated from Queensland College of Teachers, and was now a primary school teacher teaching first grade children.

The young man zealously told the girl about his research on laser coding technology which could store any information.  Nevertheless, on the spur of the moment the girl just liked gazing at the young man – the way he was sipping his tea, his smile.  Putting down his cup on the tray, he explained with gestures this unusual technique.  She did not take in anything what he was saying.  But the problem now was not the laser itself.  It was the girl’s state of mind.  It seemed some inexplicable fear weakening her heart, even causing her to stop breathing.  She now had the feeling – something unusual was happening to her fate.  It was being carved up very distinctively into two extremely asymmetric halves.  One half, small and insignificant, started from the time when she was born to the present; the other half from the present and took on a very serious effect upon the rest of her life.  Such a clear-cut segmentation of her fate was happening just right under her nose because at this hour she was sitting in the cafe under the awning by the road side with the sun shining precisely upon them.  She quietly listened to the swarthy young man quibbling about the laser coding mystery which the girl could hardly have any apprehension. 

The young man continued recounting her about his perseverance in his study eventually achieved unexpected result.  He presented to his professor not a bachelor degree thesis, but PhD.  After graduation, he was fortuitously assigned to the favorite sphere of his research work.  For half an hour the young man continued talking uncontrollably with fervour and assurance.  She felt very unnatural, even embarrassed.  She thought she might be about making a fool of herself to the extent that she could hardly even put forth a smile on the gaffe the young man making jokes of.  She was just stupefied sitting there watching him yakking incessantly, and gazing at him gesturing with his slender fingers.  What she only wanted to do now was a short intermission, however tiny, so as to allow her to simmer down, and return back to reality from the reverie.

"I should go home now," the girl said, finishing her coffee.  "You put it in a very interesting way.  So fascinating.  I really didn't expect the sneaky laser could be explained with such simple words."

Both felt they wanted to carry on, but still without regret they were on their feet leaving the cafe.

"If you have before you a magician," the young man asked the girl, "and he can only grant you one wish, what would you like to have from him?"

"I would say to him, ‘Please give me that wish’," the girl replied.  Just like that, she could not control herself and was worried she might do something foolish.  It was at this moment, she thought of her life.  In other words, in her heart a shivering feeling could seemingly paralyze her will – hastening to love the person she was so unfamiliar with, but she returned to her senses just at right time.

"You are right, people gotta have aspirations," said the young man with prudence.  "How could people live if they don’t have dreams?"

"Maybe, there are also people who don’t have dreams and live.  It is common, perhaps they are used to this."

"You don’t look like so melancholy,” the smiling young man went on to say.  "You know, I am the magician."  The lad from his shirt pocket pulled out a piece of folded paper.  It was a lottery ticket.  With his pen he wrote something on it, and then said, “Take it!  In two days the lottery winner will be announced.  This is my phone number.  If you hit the jackpot, give me a call.  Together we ..... "

"If we don’t?"

"Doesn’t matter, just call me," the lad said with a chuckle.  "I got to have a reason to give you a second coffee treat, and have another chance to give you again the two-day hope."

"Exciting!  You are truly a magician," the girl laughed.  Slowly she came out of the trance and said, "Coffee is the reward for my long wait! ……”

"Believe me, luck will come to you," the guy said mystically with a tuned down voice.  "I studied astrology and I assure you 100 percent chance of winning.”

In a minute they reached the girl’s house.

"I’ll call you," the girl said, wondering whether she should tell the boy about calling him.  She was aware that it seemed inappropriate on their first date.

The girl’s home was a mansion with the front gate guarded by a doorman.  She disappeared into the building.  The young man remained standing outside for a while.  Bewildering at the lost shadow of the girl, he then walked to the bus station.  Of course he had to go back by bus.

Lottery ticket was placed on the desk for two days.  She didn't eat, didn’t talk to her parents, just kept doing whatever on hand.  Inconspicuously she discovered her fingers trembling uncontrollably.  This had never happened before. 

The girl's family was quite rich, her father running a large company.  Seeing his daughter's unstable condition, he was perturbed.  He normally never talked to her much, but broke the silence.  With rage he asked, "I think someone is bothering you and annoyed you .  Did those boyfriends of yours upset you?”

The girl shoke her head.

"What happened to you, then?  You have to tell me.  Behaving like that can’t make things go away.”

"I know," the girl said.  "Don't worry, Daddy.  This is something entirely my own.  I can handle it myself.”

Father looked seriously at her, and then nodded.  Suddenly he walked around to her and tenderly touched her head.

Girls drove her black BMW to the garage for maintenance.  Half an hour later, she settled the repair costs by credit card, and drove away.  She had to go to the Consulate for abroad clearance.  She was about to work for an institution abroad under the Foreign Ministry.  She'd never been a primary school teacher.

This was a helpless lie for her.  She decided she would never tell lies again but only this once.  She stopped the car in front of a savings bank, got off, and locked the door, and then walked into the bank.  She wanted to see whether the young man’s lottery ticket won any prize.  She came to the window and produced the ticket.  The teller took it and started carefully checking the winning numbers published in the newspaper.

After a while, the teller told her, "You won 1,000 dollars.”

“That’s good,” girl smiled and put away the money in her pocket.  Out of the savings bank, she got back in her BMW.

On the way to the Consulate, she decided to give this guy a call with her exquisite mobile taken out from her bag.  Suddenly she felt she was as if struck by lightning.  Her body was terribly shaken.  The guy's phone number was written on the lottery ticket which was in the bank teller's drawer.

(983 words)

My story was based on one of the articles with the same title published in TRANSLATION, a bi-monthly of foreign literature, 5th Edition, Year 2010 (译林2010年第5期）.  It was translated in my own words with the intention to follow the plot as closely as I could manage.  The story was half translated to adhere to the story title, Lottery Ticket, and the fantasy genres of Home & Away.  The romance between the two young ones was left out for you to conjugate.  I disclaim any liabilities that would be entailed for any translation derailment from the original.