Dear Shirley Jackson,

It has been a traumatic High School existence, a prematurely-ejected college stay, a mind-numbing, ultimately triumphant if likewise abbreviated stint in the Army, an emigration to Germany, a courting and marriage of an amazing German girl, two births of two fantastic daughters, two terms of the country’s most ignorant President, two terms of the first black President, one term of the first orange President, one term of the first blithering President, and the deaths of both my black-dot-drawing parents who I could not see off because of a worldwide pandemic since I’ve read ‘The Lottery.’

The outside world, composed of bricks and mortar, built by the dreams of narcissistic, usually white men, crafted by the sweat of the permanently poor, fused together by promises, assurances, voodoo rituals, crossed fingers and spit, appears to be crumbling the way so many have predicted it would, from the prophets of the OT right down to REM in “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" and The Neville Brothers in “Jah Love.” Never mind–it was after your time.

The sheer weight of this outside world is crushing, the sheer distances within its universe are immeasurable, ones which “bury us with stars” as another famous musician sang around the time I read your story.

Also around this same time, about eighteen years after you left us, I watched a movie with my brother called "Life of Brian" in which, early on, there was also a stoning scene. While I rolled on the floor, unable to control my laughter, my brother sat stonily in his chair, awaiting some form of humor that appealed to him.

That's OK, we're all different. As you know, there were many readers who were far less enthused with your story than I was, and most of these swiftly wrote The New Yorker to cancel their subscriptions. Not everyone's going to get it.

But as realities impose themselves upon us, we are left, under such overwhelming pressure, within such significant distances, to cheer small victories, to rejoice in the penny found on the sidewalk next to the used needles*. To make mountains of molehills. Or to immerse oneself in distractions, denial, and a demand for creature comforts like alcohol and sweets.?

There is social media now, which is on the worldwide web, wherein teenagers and most adults catch themselves presumably forever. They watch cat videos and discuss humans like Taylor Swift.

Real experiences are few and far between: for many death is the first.

The first time I read The Lottery, I knew I was suffering a real experience. Being fictitious, the story applied to more than the student I was, the reader I was, the adolescent I was: it applied to me as a person, on the inside. My frustrations and teenage confusion were heard. The ridiculousness of the supposition that a stoning could occur in the 20th century–anywhere–only made me more certain that it was occurring–in some form or another–and always will occur…because of the town your characters lived in.

Their town was my town, and my town was any town.?

–Every town has kids that collect rocks, men that chat, talk shop, and smile rather than laugh, women who gossip, scold their kids, and stand by their partners.

–Every town has a postmaster and a master of ceremonies.?

–Every town has friendly neighbors, ones constantly repeating cliches and making inane comments about the weather, neighbors who have jobs to get to.

–And every one of ‘em is filled with residents performing rituals and habits that separate their citizens from supposedly lower animals, from humans who are “living in caves.”?

–Every town is filled with people absolutely ready to cast the first stone.

–In this late age, every town still equates work with abundance, prosperity, with just rewards, and, especially, with food: “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”

–Every town has citizens who accuse others when things don’t go their way, and these poor souls who wallow in lack and mistrust reap what they sow.?

–Every town has methods to do away with their own citizens, just as every town pays a price for the lifestyle it leads, even if no one acknowledges it.

–And, most perplexingly, what every town also has, just like the village in this story, is an absolute lack of motive for these methods. Without this motive, we're all rendered moot.

Why, after all, do we do the things we do??

Why do we do the things we do?

*–The world has really changed since 1965.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery