Recently my husband passed away in Thailand. The cleaning ladies of our building asked me how old ‘daddy’ had become. I said 92. Then they all turned out to have bought a lottery ticket with number 92. Some chose the number plate of the ambulance my husband was transported in: 334.
The day of the draw was here and everyone had a prize.
The coffin was opened one last time for one last goodbye. The girls also looked in the coffin, at the number on my husband’s ankle, applied by the forensics lab. They bought that number for the next lottery.
No one was worth it.
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A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of April 4, 2022