The Golden Ticket (a hastily written short story)

Steve slumped on his couch, a crumpled mess.  He hadn’t showered in days, and even he could smell his own stink. The TV blared in the background, some cable host blabbing.  Steve didn’t know or care what or who anymore, it had all blurred together over the last few days. “Meaningless.  All fucking meaningless,” he muttered.

His stomach rumbled, and he farted simultaneously. “Hungry,” he thought.  But he was uninspired by the pile of take-out menus stacked on the table beside him.  They matched the collection of containers scattered around him on the table, floor, and couch, which in turn matched the collection of condiments: soy, ketchup, hot sauce.

“Damn bastards got there first!” he said to the empty room. “It was my idea! My concept! Mine!” He was nearly shouting now, but it took too much energy.  He slumped again. 

Coulda, woulda, shoulda been a millionaire.  Steve’s app, LumberJack, had been on the verge of acquisition.  A brilliant social network with an actual revenue component, Lumberjack was hot in the coveted 18 to 24 year old space,  and growing in members and clicks by the hour.

But the two guys over at the Firefly app had been steadily creeping up on him over the last two months.  Steve felt the heat, and was dying to close his damn deal.  He also noted the longer pauses between negotiating calls.  

And then last week, the dreaded call came.  He had let it go to voicemail, he knew what it was.  “Steve, I’m sorry.  It’s just not gonna work out.  Stay in touch, you’ve got great potential,” said the tech firm’s dispassionate counsel.  Steve had listened to those words over and over again since.

Now he was broke, his money had all gone into business development.  He had pre-spent some of his deal money.  He had tasted it.

Steve turned on his laptop, balanced it across his knees, and ate a chip.  Clicking, browsing, surfing the world wide web.  He started playing a game of Solitaire, but was instantly numb.  He craved the excitement he’d been feeling before the call, back when he held the Golden Ticket.  

An ad blinked in the right hand corner of his screen.  “Online Poker. Win. Win. Win.” The dollar signs were as plentiful and tantalizing as the X’s on the door to a porn site.  He clicked, and played a quick winning hand.  He reached for his credit card, not quite maxed out, he realized, the light returning to his listless eyes.  

“Small money. Just a little fun,"  he thought.  He won again, and stated chatting with the online lurkers on the bottom of his screen.  His energy was building with another win.

Steve got up, cleared off the table, plugged in, and sat down.  Another win, his total had crept up to over $1,000 in just a few minutes.  

Steve entered the high roller room.  “Just looking,” he said to himself, picked up the phone and dialed the Thai place down the street.  He watched the high roller action for a few minutes.  The $10,000 bet button winked at him, he ignored it, but it winked at him again.  He clicked.  “My Golden Ticket,” he said with a small smile creeping across his face.  He was back in the game.