Posted by Sawney Beane on April 18, 2006 at 22:41:19:
The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #7
THE LOTTERY
by Sawney Beane
28 August 1992
4,915 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has WARNING: This story contains scenes of consensual female and male snuff. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story has several deficiencies. For example, the description of the prevailing social situation is ridiculously exaggerated and a bit silly, and the characters are very stereotypical: the unattractive religious nut, the irritating arrogant young man, the trendy teen girl, the kind old man, and the perfect but nihilistic female--both supermodel and prodigy--bored with everything (she's much like the late heroine of story #2). Nonetheless, it has its good points as well.
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Marina was the first one finished. She tossed the last scoop from her shovel onto the recently-filled hole and patted the top of the small mound flat with the shovel's back. She looked around as she wiped the perspiration from her tanned forehead and brushed away from her beautiful face loose strands of her four foot long bounty of thick black hair.
Marina's four companions were still busy filling the identical holes assigned to them. Five feet to her left, Marina saw a young athletic man with a bare muscular back and closely cropped blonde hair. He was just finishing his assignment. He failed to conceal his embarrassment at being outdone by a girl, especially such a gorgeous and weak one. He was also disturbed by the fact that Marina was taller than him. The difference was only two inches, but Rich's fragile ego was susceptible to minuscule insults. The arrogant twenty-five year old leaned on his shovel and undressed Marina with his eyes.
Marina did not like him from the moment she had met him several hours earlier when the work party had been formed. She nonetheless was forced by the heat to assist the egotist's scoping by removing her denim jacket. Now only a purple bikini top concealed her medium sized but perfectly formed breasts, while her bronzed abdomen was exposed to the world. Sundays in August could be very hot.
The former fashion model turned her attention to the sixty-seven year old man five feet to her right. He was struggling dutifully with his assignment. He stood in a three foot deep hole and worked slowly. Marina picked up her shovel and came to his assistance. The kindly old man smiled pleasantly as the lovely woman accelerated his progress. His name was Walt Simmons.
Rich sighed desperately. He could not allow himself to be shown up by this bitch. She had to be a bitch, he reasoned, no woman can look that good and still be nice. Rich's definition of nice involved malleability toward his will. He resigned himself to tossing shovelfuls of dirt into the two foot trench five feet to his left.
Rich's beneficiary was an enormous woman in her late thirties named Tammy. She huffed and puffed as her three hundred pound frame rotated like a steam shovel. Tammy appreciated the help and thanked God with gracious prayers between laborious breaths.
The third hole filled belonged to an eighteen year old girl named Ashleigh. She sweated on all of the latest expensive fashions and radiated trendiness. However, her disposition was far from pathological. She was quite a nice person if you could manage to ignore her banal language and complete ignorance of everything of importance. Ashleigh's pretty face, long light brown hair, and sleek figure made her popular with boys. She was a happy girl. Ashleigh mimicked Marina, whose appearance she admired immensely, and shovelled dirt into the hole assigned to Walt Simmons, whose presence she enjoyed.
The holes were all perfectly filled within half an hour. After a fifteen minute rest period, the greying supervisor in his uncomfortable suit directed the five workers to begin their next project. Each of them was assigned to dig a new hole five feet south of the hole he or she had just filled. Several hours later, five holes, each dug to the supervisor's rigorous specifications, baked in the late-afternoon sun. The five lottery winners were herded into the lobby of the city's Grand Hotel.
Marina, Walt, Ashleigh, Tammy, and Rich were entitled to a full week of every luxury money could buy after which they would be presented in public assembly with their enviable lottery winnings. The afternoon's work had been a small price to pay for their rich reward. The attachment of a small manual labour obligation to the lottery's award conditions had been necessitated by the declining workforce.
The week began for the five winners with a luxurious bath. Each of them was treated in his or her own immense private bathroom to a long wash with the assistance of six devoted attendants. Marina enjoyed the cool water as it lapped against her tanned shoulders. She hated sweat.
The bath was followed by a professional massage, which left Marina longing for more. Every muscle of her shapely body relaxed as she was tucked into the king-sized bed by a drove of attendants.
The remainder of the week consisted of a non-stop orgy of gourmet food, constant attention, and sex. The legalization of prostitution had preceded the three year old lottery by six months. As a result, the winners were all supplied with their choice of several dozen licensed prostitutes of whichever gender they preferred. Some of these professionals would normally have cost the customers thousands of dollars. This was one of the most important aspects of the lottery prize for some winners.
Walt Simmons did not partake of this particular perk. He was still mourning the death of his wife and had no intention of betraying her now or ever. He enjoyed himself nonetheless by a variety of alternate means. The food was especially good.
Rich, on the other hand, indulged himself frequently. Whenever he was too tired for intercourse, he brought in several prostitutes and instructed them to undress for his visual and tactile pleasure. This was close to his idea of Heaven.
Tammy tried a male prostitute once but did not enjoy it very much. Thereafter, she preached about the sinfulness of the others' sexual promiscuity. She confined most of her orgasms to food, and many male prostitutes were thereby much relieved.
Ashleigh was a virgin when the week began. This was a fact that she would never have revealed to anyone, even under the threat of gruesome torture. She became experienced rapidly and enjoyed intercourse more times than even Rich did that week. Her endurance was much greater than his because of her gender. Rich was disturbed by the unfairness of it all.
Marina was moderate in everything she did both during the week and in her normal life. She did many things, all of them well, but never seemed to enjoy anything for very long. Her sexual indulgence over the week did not compare to Rich's or Ashleigh's in quantity but far exceeded them in quality. Many of the men she slept with would have paid her for the opportunity. She took a man to bed with her once every night but did not gulp down encounters six or seven times a day as did Rich and Ashleigh.
Eventually, the week had to come to an end, but only Rich and Ashleigh left the Grand Hotel with a tinge of disappointment. The others were eager to collect the main portion of their prize.
The five winners were led across the grass of the public square on Sunday morning to a permanent wooden platform opposite the courthouse. Five stools were lined up across the middle of the stage, and a podium occupied its centre. Several chairs for dignitaries and other public figures were clustered on the flanks. Marina was most impressed by the massive flock of people who had turned out to watch the prize ceremony.
The five winners marched onto the stage with nervous smiles on most of their faces. Marina's slight smile was all confidence. The crowd cheered as the group came into view, and each member took up a position before one of the stools. They waved to the audience as they had been instructed to do and sat down to wait for the ceremony to begin. Marina occupied the centre stool.
The long line of boring speeches began with the president of the lottery commission who explained in excruciating detail the history of the lottery and the great benefits it provided to society. Not many doubted his words, but few enjoyed listening to them. Next, the mayor said his obligatory piece and put those not already dozing to sleep. Several others followed with much the same effect. When the meat of the ceremony was to begin, a large bell behind the stage was tolled five times. This was ostensibly to provide heightened drama to the scene but really served to wake the audience for the big event.
Before the winners could receive their prizes, they were required to each give a short explanation of why they chose to buy a lottery ticket. This was done mostly for advertising purposes. Testimonials were hard to get unless they were made conditions of the award.
Tammy was first to speak. She produced a long-winded preachy spiel about her devotion to God, God's kingdom in Heaven, His punishment in Hell, and the Devil's influence in all aspects of life. When she returned to the point, she explained that God had told her in a dream that He was ready to reward her for her devotion. The dream, she said, convinced her to shell out ten dollars for a lottery ticket. She had won the first week she played the lottery. Tammy saw this as an incarnation of divine grace.
Next up was Walt Simmons. His story was quite sad. Everyone in the audience forgot that he had just won the lottery long enough to pity him. His wife had died several months earlier of a chronic illness. He had tried in vain to make his life meaningful in her absence. However, after a month of searching for an answer, he happened to pass a lottery ticket booth. Every week since that day he had bought a ticket in the hopes that winning would turn his meaningless life in the right direction. He was aware that money could not buy happiness, but he believed on the basis of a gut feeling that a win in the lottery would be quite satisfying to his unfulfilled desires. He knew that his late wife would have wanted him to receive the good fortune bestowed upon winners of the lottery. The audience applauded his speech so vigorously that he began to blush in flattered embarrassment.
Rich swaggered to centre stage. He began by explaining with affected drama how his girlfriend had betrayed him by looking at another man and had then broken up with him after he berated her about the incident for sixteen days. He intended to prove his worth to her by winning the lottery. He wanted the bitch (He used that term in public and also revealed her name to be Cynthia Rosalinda Ames.) to regret not holding on to him. The whole speech was designed to portray Rich as some sort of folk hero. He managed instead to make everyone present believe that he was the world's biggest jerk. This was not far from the truth.
Ashleigh waved to her many friends as she ascended the podium. She smiled beautifully and wiggled her overly made-up face with exuberance. Her speech was very short, but it told the audience all about her. She explained that she had bought the ticket after being dared to blow her lunch money on the risky proposition. Her desire to prove her bravery in standing up to possible disappointment as well as possible parental disapproval of the move was proved by the accepted dare. In addition, she noted, buying lottery tickets was an in thing to do. The lottery officials knew that excerpts of this speech would have to be incorporated into the newest TV commercials. What could be better than portraying the lottery as trendy?
Marina ascended the podium last. A murmur of amazement swept the crowd as her monumental form was fully revealed. Her attire complemented her perfect body well. She wore a short black skirt, black stockings, red high-heeled shoes, and a red blouse which left her shoulders and four inches of her midriff bare. She wore no make-up. She did not need any. Her long black hair surrounded her body like a stormy sea. She looked good, but that was not unusual for her.
Marina spoke confidently and intelligently. She began by explaining the circumstances of her recognition as a child prodigy, her rapid progress through school, and her dissatisfaction thereof. She explained her successful modelling career, her ascension to fame, and her withdrawal while on the verge of world renown as a result of boredom. She explained her only passing interest in sex, food, society, and everything else she had tried and succeeded at. Marina delved into her beliefs. She said that she did not believe in God and hoped that Tammy's vision was faulty. Her reason was that she knew even Heaven would bore her. She expressed her disapproval at the frequent insistence from friends, family, and strangers that she had a special responsibility to preserve and promote a body and mind as special as her own. She felt no affinity for her body, she said. Most of the time she thought of it as a foreign object. As for her mind, this was the part of her that was bored. In short, she painted the picture of a woman who had everything but had no interest in any of it. She finished by saying that the lottery was her last-ditch effort to find a way to satisfy her troublesome mind.
Every member of the crowd felt jumbled emotions. Marina was so wonderful that they felt joyous but so troubled that they were filled with sadness and pity. They hoped that this troubled woman could find happiness in her prize, but they felt a vague sense of loss as well.
The time in which Marina and the others lived was a particularly depressing one. The American economy was a shambles, and record numbers of poverty-stricken citizens crowded the streets. Infant mortality was rising, and quality of life was plummeting. The situation had been getting worse for many years with no sign of recovery.
War was on the rise after a short global detente. The US had been embroiled in a long war for the last seven years. The renewed British Empire and the European Community it had annexed were carrying out a war of aggression against America's closest ally, Russia. The Western European cause was resisted by China, India, and other former victims of British colonization. The casualties rolled in day by day.
The environment was a wreck. Protection of the globe had gone out of style after a few years and pollution reached more disturbing levels than ever before. Global warming and the ozone layer had proven less threatening than was once believed, but both were messy enough to cause worldwide increases in disease, flooding, and death. Fossil fuel producers were running on fumes as their operations ground to a noisy halt.
Much to Nietzsche's embarrassment, it appeared that God had not been dead but only sleeping. With the loss of hope, many had turned to religion to cure their woes. In fact, the revival served only to cause more violence, poverty, and depression. Everyone saw the end as very near.
With the loss of hope came a rise in suicide. To prevent this, fairly effective deterrents were enacted. The family and friends of people who committed suicide were subjected to torture, fines, and imprisonment. The result was that only people with no one in their lives dared to take their own life.
Despite all of this, America was still a democracy. The situation eventually became so bad that no candidate for the Presidency or Congress could win while standing on a platform which was strongly anti-suicide. Thus, officials were pressured to legalize suicide against their will.
Most officials believed that the right to death, unlike the right to life, was only a privilege and not a right at all. Before this privilege could be formally converted to a universal right, a great thinker had an idea. If you have to do it, why not make a profit? The government could keep the deterrents, allow a few to commit suicide to keep the populace content, and make millions of dollars in the process. Thus was born the lottery. Any person eighteen years old or older was eligible to play.
Marina stepped back to her stool as the lottery commissioner announced to the crowd that the five individuals behind him would be presented with the weekly lottery grand prize. Everyone present cheered. The five stood up and nodded their heads graciously. The commissioner asked, as he was required to do, each of the winners individually whether or not they chose to accept their prize. All participants had the option of dropping out at any time. Each of them nodded their heads solemnly, but some were happier about it than others.
The lottery commissioner then asked the crowd if any person could supply a reason that any of the winners should not receive their prizes. A small line of objectors formed, and their claims were judged by a small group of community elders. Most of the day's objections centred around Marina and the destruction of beauty that would accompany her death. However, there was also a routine weekly objection from a small group who believed that government-assisted suicide was unethical. Objections from friends and family were rare, as they were usually consulted before the ticket was bought or at least before the winner arrived at city hall to redeem it. All disputes were dismissed as unfounded, and permission to continue was granted by the judges.
The podium was dragged away to allow a better view as the winners removed their clothing. This was designed by the lottery executives to enhance the entertainment value of the spectacle. Winners were required to accept their prizes in the nude. This did not bother many people too much. It was a small price to pay.
Tammy fumblingly disrobed and shyly tried to conceal the more taboo parts of her bulky anatomy. It was a vain effort, but most people were trying not to look at her anyway.
The elderly Walt Simmons did not enjoy this part at all but complied without argument. His withered body did not attract many stares.
Rich tossed his clothing into the audience in an elaborate strip-tease. His ex-girlfriend was smacked in the forehead by his shoe as it flew into the crowd. She did not feel as sorry about dumping him as he had hoped she would. She knew he was a jerk and was glad to be rid of him. She was embarrassed that he had used her name, but enjoyed seeing him make a fool of himself.
Ashleigh was reasonably comfortable about her nudity. She was proud of her young body and relished the opportunity to show it off. She enjoyed knowing that dozens of young men in the crowd before her were drooling and scolding themselves for not making it into her panties before it was too late. She drew many eyes.
Marina undressed slowly and methodically. She was not the least bit shy about her body. As she had explained, her relationship with it was somewhat estranged. She felt neither embarrassment nor pride in her appearance. Everyone else derived pleasure from the experience of seeing it, however. She drew the vast majority of the crowd's attention. Even Rich stared at her in disbelief. It was as if his earlier attempts at undressing her with his eyes seemed suddenly pathetic to him. His erect penis betrayed his thoughts.
The crowd applauded in final appreciation of the lucky five. On cue, the five ascended their stools. The applause continued as each of them reached up and pulled down the noose assigned to him or her. Marina pulled her hair through the loop after putting it around her slender neck. An official walked behind the line of winners to assure that the nooses were properly affixed around the five necks and that there was no slack in the ropes. The five winners stood for several minutes on their stools awaiting the final cue. The applause reached deafening proportions as the bell tolled five more times.
Tammy was the first to make the leap of faith. She eagerly kicked the stool away as soon as she heard the signal. Her massive body caused the rope to stretch and the beam above her to sag, but she died quickly. God took her mercifully to her Heavenly reward. One hand slipped away from the breasts it concealed while the other left her pubic region. Both hung limply at her side. She was revealed in death, but no one was watching.
Walt harboured no doubt as he stepped off into the void. He was going to be reunited with his beloved wife. There was no question that he was doing the right thing. However, he was small and light and dangled from his rope twitching frequently for many minutes. He was the last to die. The traditional method of hanging, which involved a fall of several feet, had been experimented with. However, the broken necks that happened more often this way had not appealed to the crowds as much as the slower death by strangulation. Consequently, the stationary hangings, which involved a removal of support but no fall, were adopted. The entertainment value was of utmost importance.
Rich hesitated the longest. He had never really intended to die. He had fully expected his ex-girlfriend to protest the suicide and force him to reluctantly forsake death for her. She had been smarter than that. She did not intend to ruin her life to save the neck of the pitiful spoiled son of a bitch. When he had waited as long as he could without appearing squeamish, Rich kicked away his stool reluctantly. He could not face the embarrassment of chickening out. Ego is a deadly thing. Rich further embarrassed himself by urinating all over the stage.
Ashleigh glanced at Marina before she jumped. She hoped to gain inspiration from the cool demeanour of the woman dying beside her. Like Rich, Ashleigh never really intended to commit suicide. However, this was because she had never expected to win the lottery. She had known a week earlier, the day of the prize drawing, that her fate was set. She did not expect anyone to save her at the last minute. The dare was really to see if she would go along with the consequences of entering the lottery. She had not expected the consequences to be so weighty, but she was determined to prevail against the poser of the dare. She would be heinously uncool if she were to back out now. This was a fate worse than death. Ashleigh had enjoyed the last week of her life as well as she could and accepted her fate as calmly as possible. Her best friend, the dare poser, did feel intensely guilty and sad. Besides, Ashleigh thought, as she jumped off the stool and felt the rope tighten around her powdered neck, suicide was very trendy. Her posthumous coolness would be famous until she was forgotten several weeks later.
Marina smiled faintly as she serenely kicked the stool from under her. The feel of the wood on her bare foot as the stool tumbled away pleased her more than anything else in her life. She had many thoughts but no regrets. She did not mind consigning her masterpiece body to an underground cell. She had never really appreciated the art of it anyway. After all, she reasoned, she was twenty-eight now, and her beauty could not be expected to persist for much longer. It had twenty years at the very most. Death did not frighten her. She could find true pleasure in nothing. By casting herself into the void and embracing nothingness, she would find happiness, especially if it meant ceasing to exist, as she believed it did.
Marina fell a few inches, and she felt the pressure on her neck. It hurt her somewhat, but it was a glorious sort of pain. She saw and imagined the hundreds of people watching her pain and pleasure. She was the centre of most attention, she knew. She enjoyed attention for the first time. Her mind remained clear, but her body would not obey her mind's commands. She wanted to hang passively as her brain lost its supply of oxygen, but her body insisted on twitching and struggling. Her body behaved better than the other four in the line, but it troubled her nonetheless. Finally, she was pleased to gain control. Her body stopped its movement and hung next to two other motionless bodies and two twitching bodies. She saw the comforting darkness and ran to it. It surrounded her, and her being dissolved peacefully.
When the five winners had all finished enjoying their prizes, an official slipped each neck out of its noose, and the five motionless bodies were carried to the post-processing area behind the stage. Each of the winners' families was allowed a few minutes to pay last respects to the deceased. Many tears were shed, but no one was surprised. Then the processing of the bodies began.
Marina's fine form was laid out in a hardwood casket, and her long black hair was cut short by the wigmaker to whom Marina had sold the locks for two thousand dollars. He knew that some rich woman would pay five thousand dollars to wear the hair of such a great icon. Many others would pay two or three thousand dollars to wear cleverly-made replicas until Marina was forgotten a month later and another hero took her place. Ashleigh had netted five hundred for her locks. Both women had donated the profits to their relatives.
When the hair was gone, each corpse was attacked by a large medical team, which was assigned to harvest all recyclable body parts. Mandatory organ donation was a part of the agreement. It was a small price to pay. Eight doctors swarmed about Marina's body. A tube was attached to each carotid artery and six other essential vessels to suck the blood out and into a blood bank. As the corpse grew pale, several doctors cut a long incision from the woman's tanned navel to the base of her neck. The breastbone was pulled out unceremoniously, and the rich treasure trove of organs was plundered. The doctors appropriated Marina's heart, liver, pancreas, lungs, ovaries, kidneys, and several other organs. These were removed and stored on ice. Marina's death would allow many sick people to live. This had nothing to do with her desire to die. The others were treated similarly.
When the doctors had finished, the collectors began their plunder. This was strictly controlled. Before the hole-digging had begun, the five lottery winners were presented with offers from private parties for various parts of their bodies. Aside from the mandatory donations, the winner was completely in control of his or her body's destiny. All profits went to designated beneficiaries.
Tammy was not terribly thrilled by the prospect of dividing up her flesh amongst collectors. She flatly refused all offers. Fortunately, few offers were made. Walt was similarly reluctant but had few offers to reject.
Rich had quite a few offers. He rejected many of them because he never planned to die. He accepted several offers for benign parts but refused to sell his genitals. He had a castration complex even in death.
Ashleigh did not hesitate to auction off her desirable bodily parts. Her most ingenious idea was arranged with the friend who had made the dare. The friend was given both of Ashleigh's thighs and had them sliced into one-inch thick sections. Each section was cut radially such that each piece consisted of a one-inch square of tanned skin tapering down to a corresponding small sliver of femur. Each of the several hundred artefacts was encased in plastic and sold to classmates. Within a week ninety-nine percent of the student body at Ashleigh's high school were the proud owners of a section of her body. Remaining remains were freely sold to interested collectors.
Marina's body was by far the most picked over. She had sold each and every part to the highest bidder. One of her brown eyes was sold to a Japanese collector who owned more than three hundred eyeballs from American women. The other ended up in an Italian museum. Her brain entered the Smithsonian to represent Homo sapiens in an exhibit comparing the brain sizes of various human species. One of her breasts fetched a high price from a British collector, while the other went to a German anatomy museum. Her genitals were preserved for the King of Saudi Arabia. Her bones travelled to a remarkable number of destinations. All told, Marina's body was distributed among thirty-seven states and twenty-six foreign countries. When the distribution was finished little was left of Marina beyond a spot of blood and a few unidentifiable pieces of viscera.
Each casket was sealed around the various remains its five lottery winner and was carried by officials to the grave its occupant had dug for his or herself a week earlier.
When each casket was safely in the ground, three men and two women, the next week's lottery winners, were brought forward and given shovels. The hot sun burned down on the five workers as they tossed dirt onto their predecessors' final resting places. They had been thoroughly briefed about their rights and responsibilities.
Marina's gravestone was one of five in the one hundred sixty-seventh row of the cemetery devoted to the memorialisation of lottery winners. She was finally happy with something. Nothingness was the only thing that failed to bore her.