My Number Was Up

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B.K. Taoana
Tags: Fiction

With my mouth gaping open, I stared at the small piece of paper in my hand. I turned my eyes to the newspaper next to me, then back to the small paper. Then back to the newspaper. I was starting to feel like a tennis umpire, who keeps his eyes trained on the ball and constantly turns his neck to do so. I was struggling to come to terms with the implications of what I was reading. Struggling to convince myself that this was not a joke my senses were playing on me, that I was not misreading the information in front of me. Following my failure to convince myself of these things, I decided to enlist help.

I pressed the button. Seconds later, the nurse on duty, my favourite nurse, came in with a solicitous look on her face.

“Anything the matter, sir?” she enquired with raised eyebrows and a voice that could best be described as angelically choral. She checked the machine to which I was connected for any worrying changes in my vital signs.

“No, nothing’s wrong dear, I just need you to take a look at something for me. I think these drugs you’re pumping into me are taking on hallucinogenic qualities.” As I said this, I handed her the big and small papers. “Look at page four in the newspaper, and compare it to what I’ve written on the other paper.”

“You are definitely seeing what you think you’re seeing,” she said after comparing the two. “Mr Ntjebe, YOU HAVE WON THE LOTTERY! Where is the ticket? I hope you have the ticket.”

“It’s among my things in the wardrobe.”

I couldn’t be as elated as the nurse was. If I weren’t bed-ridden, rendered totally incapacitated by that wretched cancer, I might have broken into song and dance. I might have proposed to her on the spot. Instead, I was overcome by a heightened sense of irony. I spent my whole life slaving away at any number of drudgeries, all of them thankless because I never earned much. And then when I was already over the hill, moribund and with my best days behind me, I had won twenty-four million useless rands. Useless because I no longer had the capacity to enjoy them. Instead of seeing my win as a boon, I wished I believed in a god, so I could curse it for meting out such a cruel and unusual punishment to me.

To be fair, I had been a cruel and unusual man. I had sired several children with several women, and been a father to none of them. I had sowed more wild oats than the land could handle. The level of my drinking surpassed that of my closest rival by a distance. After years of abuse and oppression, victims inevitably reach a breaking point, where they hit back and resolutely say “never again”. This is what my liver did. And that is why I was lying in “God’s waiting room”, where there were not enough magazines for everyone.

“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” the nurse enquired, interrupting my reverie.

I gave a weak, wry smile. “I’m not exactly in a position to leap for joy, or pick you up and spin you around. But I can marry you if you want.”

“Oh Mr Ntjebe, you are such a bag of laughs,” she retorted playfully. “The first time you asked for my hand in marriage, I wasn’t sure. But for some funny reason, now I do want to marry you.”

“Of course you do. And I know it’s because of my winning personality.”

We carried on like that for while, after which the nurse left the room to attend to a real emergency elsewhere in the hospital, but not before issuing me with a stern warning not to get too excited, not in my condition.

I lay there pondering. What to do? I was an instant multi-millionaire. Dressed up with nowhere to go. My thoughts became inundated with where my money should end up. Not a church, because I didn’t feel like giving some minister the chance to buy another humble limousine. Not a charity, because I didn’t feel like having sixty percent or more of my donation going towards “administration” or “miscellaneous expenses”. As I hopped from idea to idea, I quickly realised that there were many things I didn’t feel like. I eventually settled on what should have been my very first idea: my bastards.

I would find a good attorney, one who would track down all my children and distribute my winnings between them. For those who were not yet of age, he could probably arrange for the money to be held in trust. I estimated that after legal expenses and estate taxes, there would be something in the order of eighteen million left. If I didn’t have more than eighteen offspring (and I’d already accepted that this was not likely the case), they would each inherit at least a million.

My rudimentary estate planning was interrupted by the nurse. She came in to shift me around a little, so as to avoid my getting bedsores. She also wiped down my forehead with a cool, wet towel. It felt good.

“So…Have you shared the good news with anyone? Anyone at all?” she asked casually.

“Not really. No one even knew I played this blasted thing.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I’m sure it would be fun to experience the joy with someone.”

“Someone like you?” I asked mockingly.

“No, don’t be silly Mr Ntjebe”, she giggled coyly. “I just meant it’s a pity you don’t have any friends or even family to share this moment with.”

“Ja hey. Pity.”

“Anyway, I’ll be back at five to change your drip, and I hope you’re hungry because there’s a nice potato mash with sausages for supper.”

“Yum.”

With that she left me to revisit my planning. I thought to myself that the next day, if I had a bit of strength in me, I would browse the yellow pages and find a reliable attorney, who would do everything that needed to be done: cash my ticket; draw up a will; find my bastards. Even if he were able to do the latter, I doubt any of them would want to meet with me. That was fine by me. My final cathartic act of bequeathing to them this windfall, I was certain, would more than make up for my absence in their lives.

For the first time in a while, I smiled. At the eleventh hour, I had found a way of ensuring that I’d be remembered for more than my uncanny ability to sink beers and procreate. I would leave behind a meaningful legacy, which hopefully wouldn’t be squandered too quickly.

I drifted into a long reverie, moving in a desultory fashion from one thought to another. I thought of how meaningless my life had been. How I’d failed as a father, as a man. I thought of how rich I’d made my old haunt, the local tavern, and how I’d impoverished myself in the process. My aimless daydreaming finally landed on one final thought: the permutations of how one’s life can be lived are infinite, but there’s only one possible way for life to end, and that is death. Even if I had been an upstanding family-man and not a hopeless, blundering drunkard, I couldn’t escape death. It was this final thought which gave me a small measure of comfort.

Five o’clock. Time for the drip change. The nurse was right in time. She injected the usual concoction into the drip, and also something else I’d never seen before.

“What does that new one do?”

“Well, the cancer is now in its final, most aggressive stage, so your medication will be changing gradually. Most of it will be to numb the pain.” I could tell she said this with the most sympathetic and sensitive tone she could muster. I was going to miss her bedside manner.

“Oh,” came my almost inaudible reply. “Well, I’ve decided what to do with the money. I’m going to make sure it’s put to good use.” I told her this in an effort to lighten the mood. I didn’t, however, wish to divulge too much. She didn’t know about my colourful past.

“That’s wonderful, Mr Ntjebe! I’m sure your money will end up in the most deserving hands. You are such a kind, generous man.”

“Ja well, I guess it’s never too late to do something noble. It’s going to be the first and last thing I ever do which I can be proud of.”

“That can’t be true, Mr Ntjebe, you must have done many wonderful things in your life.”

That would explain the hordes of loving people bombarding me with visits, I thought to myself sardonically. It’s her job to be nice to me, to compliment me even when it’s unwarranted. One of the perks of being in my condition.

“Now let me tidy up a little before you have your supper.” She straightened my linen and removed a magazine which I hadn’t gotten around to perusing.

There was a barely perceptible change in me, which soon became very much perceptible. The machine even beeped slightly differently, and that was definitely not my ears playing tricks on me with some auditory illusion. My blinking became heavy, and each breath took a concerted, frantic effort. My chest felt as if it were under a vice, which was slowly but relentlessly tightening. I mouthed a call for help, which came out as less than a whisper. My efforts to catch the nurse’s eye were just as futile. While all this was happening, she didn’t seem too bothered at all. On the contrary, she was wearing a smug smile, and reaching into the wardrobe for my ticket. As my last breaths issued from my mouth, she tucked the ticket safely into her breast pocket and screamed for the doctor. She put on the most convincing look of horror and panic I had ever seen.