Mrs. Delacroix has realized what she’d done. She was one of those who killed her best friend in the whole town. After everyone resumed their daily routines, Mrs. Delacroix stayed and watched as a Mr. Graves took her corpse away. He barely noticed that she was staying. Her eyes already watering, she sobbed and knelt. She killed Tessie. She betrayed her and sided with the rest of the three hundred citizens.
Why? Why does the town continue to kill every year. Why does nobody recognize the evil and injustice of this yearly event? Why does the lottery exist in the first place? Who could come up with such a horrible idea? Mrs. Delacroix needed answers, and she know only one person old enough to know.
It took a minute to wipe the tears of her face, but it took 7 to walk to Old Man Warner’s place. It was on the outskirts with no neighboring property. From his house, there was a very short road you’d have to walk to reach the actual town. Mrs. Dellacroix crossed this road and reached the front door. She knocked a few times on the old black wooden door
“Mr. Warner? Mr. Warner!”
She heard a grunt, then a few locks open up. Old Man Warner then opened the door to find Mrs. Dellacroix.
“What do you want?” He said in his old man voice.
“I need to talk to you about the lottery”
“If this is about ending the lottery, you’re out of your mind. The whole town depends on the lottery and you and I both know that”
“But I need to know why. Why do we need it? What’s the point? Why does it exist?”
“You want history? Oh, I’ll give ya history. Come in and take a seat.”
Mrs. Dellacroix had never been inside Old Man Warner’s house. As soon as she walked in, she saw a rocking chair and a long mattress across from it. She sat on the surprisingly comfy mattress as Mr. Warner took the rocking chair
“We all know this town and the lottery have been here before us right?”
“Yes, of course Mr. Warner”
“Now, I’m only 77 years old and I know the town’s been here before me. That don’t mean I can’t tell you about this lottery. When I was young, I myself asked someone about the lottery. Same questions you did.”
“And what did they say?”
“Well they didn’t answer the questions, but I figured it all out myself.”
“Go on.”
“See, it all starts around 1843. A little more than a century ago. These townsfolk, a bunch of families, used to participate in the lottery. Thinking it was horrible, they escaped around spring. They picked that time because they’d use the old town’s good food and have time to look for new land or another town. They found uncivilized plains and used crops and seeds from the town they left."
"Few people here and there, along with expanding families, motivated the people to call themselves their own town instead of a group of explorers. Oh, this is 1844 by the way."
"Another, what, ten years later, more people leave towns with the lottery. Let’s say we have around 134 people."
"Here’s where things go bad. It’s 1861 and the harvests have been really bad. Of the years between the population increase and ‘61, only one year had good harvest. The rest were basically rubbish."
"Now here’s something to remember. The year someone fell down that well in the town was when we had good harvest. Around 1863, someone didn’t want to risk the painful death of starvation. This lady thought it through and she decided to cut her arm off with a knife, leaving herself to bleed out. There were many good crops that year as well. And here’s something else. Both deaths were in June 27th."
"For the next three years, a group of friends did the same. One would kill himself in 1866, another in 1867, and the last in 1868. All suicides were in June and the town had a wonderful time with the crops"
"Now we’re at 1871. The original settlers thought of bringing back the very thing they ran away from. The lottery. They realized why it existed and they implemented it in the town. From them on, we’ve always had good crops.”
“Wow. So you were right about the ‘lottery in June, corn be heavy soon’ saying”
“Exactly. Not everyone understands. They’ve become blind fools. Honestly, even I know it’s wrong, but the sacrifice benefits everyone else and it’ll drain down the population over the future.”
The answers nearly haunted Mrs. Delacroix. It was now 1949. She knew someone would have to be sacrificed for the well-being or the rest of the town. During the new lottery, the history of the town was stuck in her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about it for a year.
Mr. Dellacroix selected a paper. He couldn’t help but look at it beforehand. It had the dot. He told his wife.
“What should we do?”
“I couldn’t live without you or our son” Mrs. Dellacroix responded. “I’ll sacrifice myself.”
“What? No. The victim is random. You can’t just go up there and ask them to stone you” he said in a serious and low tone.
“I know things that this town has forgotten. I’ll show them all.”
When Mr. Dellacroix revealed his paper, it was his family’s turn to pick who would die. Before Mr. Summers even reached them, Mrs. Dellacroix yelled out “I sacrifice myself”
The whole crowd was stunned to see someone use her life to save those of her family.
“Are you sure about that?” Mr. Summers asked
“Let me explain. The whole point of the lottery is to sacrifice someone in exchange for a good harvest. It doesn’t matter if it’s random. I’m willing to let everyone stone me for their good health and the health of my family”
The town was skeptical about Tessie’s response, but those were the last words of Mrs. Delacroix.
