Irony

The loud tick of the highly-polished old grandfather clock bought John out of his reverie. The tick before the clock sounded was always louder. He put the forgotten soldering iron, carelessly held in one hand, away onto its stand. Blinking, John stood, briefly stretching aching limbs, and walked into the kitchen. His ingrained fussiness revealed itself in the tidiness of every shelf and surface of his flat except for his workbench, where seeming chaos reigned unchecked. Mysterious wires and components were strewn over the entire surface. In the centre a contraption lay there, looking more like a mechanical vivisection than a working machine. Engrossed in his tea-making task, John never saw the faint blue light that appeared briefly over the table.1

Walking back into workshop-cum office, John allowed himself the luxury of a cigarette before turning back to the bench. Lost once more, deep in mathematical thought, John aimlessly lifted the paper that lay atop the machine to put it aside and froze. A feeling of dread and excitement filled him simultaneously. With growing anticipation he inspected the paper. A partly crumpled Lottery ticket with the words "It Worked! Remember paradox!" emblazoned on it in thick black marker pen.2

John's hobby was space/time relationships, this coupled with a mathematical genius and a flair for mechanics had started him on the road to inventing time distortion. He read the lottery ticket once more and noticed the numbers, a consecutive series of six prime numbers. This convinced him. Reluctantly he set match to the ticket. His greatest fear was the paradox of co-existence of the same thing at the same time. Being saturday, he knew the shop closed early, so he hurriedly donned shoes and a coat and strode down to the corner shop. Walking over to the lottery display he took a ticket and with bold strokes and a huge grin filled out the ticket. His grin broadened as he queued to present the ticket to Mr. Patel. "You look happy John" quipped Mr. Patel, feeding the ticket into the machine. "Do you know something we don't?"3

"Yes" said John enigmatically.4

Arriving home, John tossed the ticket to one side and continued tinkering with his invention. After an hour he was happy with the result and cautiously applied power. All the readings were stable. Looking around he found the ticket had fallen to the floor. Picking it up, he grabbed a felt marker pen and scrawled "It Worked! Remember paradox!" across it. Placing the paper into the machine, he applied full power and the paper flickered briefly before disappearing. John let out a long sigh of both relief and immense satisfaction. Lighting another cigarette he poured himself a celebratory whisky and switched on the television to relax and unwind. The set sprang to life and Carol Vordamans voice rose with the words, "Ladies and gentleman, This is incredible, for the first time in Lottery history,with a jackpot of fourteen million, the draw consists of a consecutive series of prime numbers." John's whiskey tumbler dropped to the floor.5