The Dream

He gave a sigh of relief. The queue was moving slowly. But it was moving. And the movement made him feel good.

Soon he would be at the head of the queue, thrusting his money through the slit on the glass partition. And if his dream became true, the wealth that eluded him all his life would be his.

Thirty five thousand dollars. What couldn't he buy with it? And yet. There were some priorities.

A bigger colour television. That was one. His youngest brother would love that. Yes. To have a bigger colour television flooding more colours into the dark interior of their one room flat. And the bicycle for Ah Sim , his other brother. A bicycle. He could imagine the look of surprise and happiness on Ah Sim's face as he wheeled it in. His very own bicycle. No more begging the neighbour's children for a chance to ride theirs.

All his life he had seen the dream of wealth. Ever since his mother died. He hadn't cared much for this father. Father never contributed to the family income, seldom even visited home. It had fallen on him to look after the family after his mother died.

Thirty dollars wasn't much. But that was all he had to place a bet on.

Thirty dollars for two days.

The whirr and beeps interrupted his thoughts. He was one step behind the counter.

He handed in his slip as the man ahead moved off. With it, neatly stacked were his thirty dollars. Fifteen dollars for Saturday and fifteen dollars for Sunday.

The person behind him sighed. He could guess why. He had only one number on his slip. That was a relief to the man behind. It meant a shorter wait for him.

In less than 8 seconds, his ticket was thrust out of the booth. He studied it carefully as he moved away. He wanted no misprint to spoil his chances. 8216. Neat. Big. Ten dollars. Small. Five dollars.

He had never betted all his life, simply because he never had any money left over to indulge in the luxury. But this time it was different. There was the dream.

It was always the same dream. Night after night. The same scene. The same numbers. Repeated countless times. It was the number he had come to remember-8216.

The dream never changed. That was what he considered strange. There was a glass window. Looking out, their faces flattened against the glass pane , were the children. A whole group of them. There was a look on their faces. He couldn't place it. A look of fear, or happiness, or sadness or horror. Or was it pity? He never had a chance to place it because the scene was always too brief, too short to register in his mind.

Then immediately the scene would move downwards. Like a camera being lowered. And out from the vague darkness, he could make out the numbers. Always the same number. 8216.

Always 8216.