Lucky Ticket
by Joey Bui
Fortunes rise and fall. One day you have a lucky ticket and get a dinner so good and you eat so much that you think you'll never need to eat again. You get busy making plans and then the hunger comes looking for you.I'm just an old man selling lucky tickets, but my theory is that we all get our turn in the end. I've had my turn at fortune. It was some years ago, maybe 2002, because I remember that was when Sài Gòn was less red and bright with fried chicken signs everywhere.A highly original collection of stories by a talented young writer. In the comic-tragic eponymous story, 'Lucky Ticket', the narrator, a genial, disabled old man, whose spirit is far from crushed, sells lottery tickets on a street corner in bustling Saigon. In 'Mekong Love', two young people in a restrictive society try to find a way to consummate their relationship—in an extraordinary tropical landscape. In 'Abu Dhabi Gently', a story of dreams and disappointment, of camaraderie and...