It was December 23 – the eve of Christmas Eve. The wind whistled as Steven Moore slowly trudged though the thick layer of snow that had built up over the past month. He muttered to himself as the wind blew another sheet of snow into his face, and dug his hands deeper into his ragged coat. As the sun slowly set, he abruptly stopped, and took out a small slip of paper.
"159102," he said in a low voice. "These are my lucky numbers."
Two Christmases had already passed since he lost most of his money in the Royal Daemon Casino. Since then, he had been living on the streets, earning barely enough money each week to both feed himself and buy a lottery ticket from the local convenience store. Every Friday, he would walk three miles just to see if he had somehow won; this week was no different.
As Steven neared the end of his trek to the lottery outpost, he felt a sudden weariness that he hadn't felt before. His legs began to buckle under him, and his hands felt as numb as ice. He barely managed to steady his weary body against a nearby lamppost as he slowly sank to his knees. "Almost there," he murmured, "just a little bit farther." A voluminous gust of snow blotted out his figure.
When he finally stopped, he had arrived at his destination. He looked up into the eerie gray clouds, as if saying a silent prayer, and stepped inside the brightly lit building.
"Lottery ticket number?" asked the woman behind the counter in a monotone voice.
"159102," he uttered expectantly.
The woman behind the counter looked down at her computer, blinked and said incredulously, "May I have your ticket, sir? I believe that you may have won!" The woman scanned his ticket once, twice, three times, and then exclaimed, "There's no mistake! You have won 1.5 million dollars!" She tapped a key on her computer and asked, "Name?"
"Steven Moore," he replied.
"Age?"
"46," he answered.
"Current residence?"
He paused, and slowly said, "I'm homeless."
The woman glanced up from her computer, her eyebrows furrowed questioningly and asked, "I'm sorry, did I hear you correctly? You said that you are homeless?"
"Yes, that is correct. I am homeless," he replied.
She frowned and said, "I'm extremely sorry, sir, but to qualify for this week's prize, you need to be living in a residential establishment."
"No, please! Can't you make an exception for me?" Steven desperately shouted.
"There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry," the woman replied sympathetically.
The wind whistled as Steven Moore once again trudged though the thick layer of winter snow.
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