Six Numbers

Chapter 1 Benjamin pushed the door to his small apartment open and lugged five bags of groceries to the counter of his kitchenette. When he had put the weekly shopping away he removed two lottery tickets from his wallet, kissed them for luck, and placed them carefully beneath the statuette of Buddha that sat by the fruit bowl at the end of the counter. One coupon contained the twelve sets of six numbers he played every week and the other was a Slikpik, a set of computer generated numbers. This way, he surmised, he’d have all bases covered. As it was Friday, Benjamin set about doing his laundry. He always did his laundry on Friday. First groceries then laundry. Saturday morning was cleaning-the-apartment time and then he had the rest of the weekend to do whatever he wanted, which never amounted to much. During the long summer months he usually headed to the beach. It was only a half-hour drive from where he lived and he could while away his time reading, swimming, or sunbaking while listening to music on his iPod. In the winter, his solitary existence would really hit home. He slept a lot, watched a mountain of DVDs, and went for the occasional walk, weather permitting, not for exercise, but to keep from going stir-crazy. For dinner, he made a simple salad and heated some frozen, pre-cooked chicken kievs, which he ate while watching a re-run of Roseanne on television. Afterwards, he did the dishes. He never went to bed without doing the dishes. Since he left home, more than fifteen years ago, he’d never gone to bed with dirty dishes in the sink because dirty dishes were one thing he couldn’t face first thing in the morning. He watched part one of The Hobbit on DVD for the third time, drifting in and out of sleep during the second half, and when the movie had finished, he brushed his teeth and went to bed. It was eleven-thirty. He was asleep within minutes. Saturday was not a hot day. It was mid-spring and while the temperatures hovered in the high twenties, the scorching heat of summer was still two or three months away. Nevertheless, with his laundry and cleaning taken care of, Benjamin was anxious to get out and about. He decided to take a drive to the beach. The waters of the Indian Ocean would still be too chilly for a dip, but the idea of the fresh sea air in his nostrils and the warm sun on his face was a lure too great to ignore. As he laid eyes on the deep blue of the ocean for the first time since the previous summer, he felt his body release all the stress it had accumulated over the winter months and an indescribable sense of peace settled over him. At the water’s edge, small waves crashed onto the sand, splashing his legs and the hems of his cargo shorts. A middle-aged couple walked by, hand in hand. They were chatting and laughing, and every now and again they looked lovingly into each other’s eyes. The woman smiled at him as they passed each other and he returned a flimsy half-smile before averting his eyes. He suddenly felt very lonely.