The small shop is packed with people and noisy when I get there. Well, this is Chinatown, after all. '$50 MILLION TO BE WON TONIGHT!' scream the flourescent yellow signs hanging in the shop window. Several people push past me to collect forms, joining others who are already busily colouring in numbers, brows furrowed in deep concentration. Ah, but I'm not interested in this draw. I'm checking my results for last week's $40 million draw. Yes that's right, $40 million. That's how much this ticket is worth, this ticket sitting safe and secure in my zipped-up jacket pocket. [How you doing there, Mister Forty Million? All warm and snug? Good.]

You see, I've got it all figured out:

• I chose to play megapick games, because megapick - unlike human judgement - is always random, just like lotto numbers are random.
• I chose six games because six is my lucky number. I think.
• I won $12 last time.

Okay, even if I don't win the grand prize, I'll at least get $100k yeah? Minimum. That's enough to pay off the place, buy a laptop, get a few suits made, go on some trips, hire some...

I saunter up to the counter, ticket in hand. Argh, there's a queue. I wait, anxiously fingering the ticket but careful not to ruin it. There's a communication breakdown between a customer and the counter lady. They're shouting because they can't hear themselves amidst the hustle and bustle of people in the shop. 'What, you want two games? We don't do two... No! Two too little, too little... What? Oh! Twenty. Twenty games! You want twenty games?' I find myself, once again, thinking about how I would spend forty mill. Or a hundred k, even. Can other people see the dollar signs flashing in my eyes?

My turn. Although the counter lady is short, the whole counter is elevated on a platform, so that she seems like a royal subject perched upon a throne. She looks down upon me. The gatekeeper, perhaps?

'I wanna check this,' I mutter, my voice trailing off, and hand her my ticket. This is it, I think to myself. This is the moment. She casually slots the ticket into the scanning machine. I'm frozen to the spot, staring intently at the small display on the machine, oblivious to everything around me. Don't they know this could make or break me? Come on, come on. Please please please...

SORRY YOU ARE NOT A WINNER, reads the display.

Lunch break over. Back to work.

Confirming the phrase 'the early bird catches the worm', I'm awoken by my phone ringing at an early eleven am. I instinctively reach across the desk to answer it.

'Hello?' I answer groggily.

'Chisin, you still coming?' It's Monkey. A pause. I'm thinking - coming? To what? Ah yes, I remember now.

'Err...umm... (open eyes, open eyes...argh shit, no, close them, close them)... Nah, stuff it, I couldn't be fucked,' I croak back.

'Ok no worries mate.'

I throw the phone back onto the desk and sink into my pillow. Sleep. Ahhh, sleep. Two minutes later the phone rings again. I instinctively reach across the desk to answer it.

'Hello?' I answer groggily.

'Hey, aren't you coming to lunch?' It's Fob. A pause.

'Err...umm... I dunno, you guys go..'

'Nah come, you have to come, don't be such a pig man.'

Half an hour later I've left my cold house and sit in Monkey's car, heading towards the city. It's a sparkling winter's day; fat beams of almost summer sunshine drench us both, and I have to take off my jacket and scarf. Now we're stuck in traffic, but I don't mind that I'm famished and Fob's waiting impatiently, because I'm a lizard languishing in the warmth of the sun and Coldplay. I blink, lazily.

'Hey I know this awesome Thai place,' suggests Fob after we meet her.

'I'm starving,' quips Monkey, automatically.

'Nice schoolbag,' I remark, gesturing at Fob's six dollar bag from Target (with matching wallet).

We scamper over to the Thai place on the corner, and after briefly perusing the menu I settle for the usual non-chilli dish. 'I'm starving,' quips Monkey, automatically. Over plates of overly-sweet noodles and fried chicken, we organise plans for the rest of the year, talk about girls ('school uniform - now that's hot!'), and listen to the story of Fob losing her passport.

Afterwards we decide on coffee. 'Hey I know this awesome Pulp Fiction-themed cafe down the road,' suggests Fob once again. Expecting Marilyn Monroe waitresses, neon booths and a dancing stage, I am bitterly disappointed when we arrive to find a dimly-lit shop with framed movie posters on the walls. So disappointed, in fact, that I order a soy hot chocolate.

'There's this theory that you end up with someone totally opposite to you to balance out the gene-pool,' starts Fob on her line of wacky theories. 'So Monkey, your chick will have tiny teeth and be really tall.'

'And be smart too,' I add. This earns me a threatening stare from Monkey.

'Hmm...what about Aids? I think...'

When we leave the cafe it's already late afternoon. The sun is no longer shining; dark clouds have blanketed the sky, and a chill wind is picking up. How quickly the weather changes. Monkey is off to work, and Fob needs to study. Me, well, I'm not sure. I head home, but for what I don't know. Later I join the others for dinner, but it's so very cold, and everyone's tired. When I'm back, back in my room, I feel like I'm waiting, waiting for something to happen but there's nothing, and I sleep, sleep to wake up and catch the early worm on a new day. Cold. How quickly the weather changes.

Even when you're feeling warm, the temperature could drop away, like four seasons in one day' - Four Seasons In One Day, Crowded House

Sleep. I need more sleep. I've been up late; late into the night, shooting zombies on my computer. Behind the door, underneath the stairwell, down the long hallway. The clock ticks away, and I fall, deeper and deeper, until the virtual world becomes inseparable from the real one - a world grim and dark and unrelenting. The insanity of it all keeps me sane. Am I joining the undead?

Footsteps echoing on steel grates, and now I'm fighting for my life, desperately reloading, fleeing, trapped in a corner. No escape, they whisper, no escape. Bang bang bang - I'm killing what is already dead, and laugh at the irony of it all.

I've been having weird dreams again. Lately I dreamt I was the President, and I stood on a high balcony overlooking a square filled with millions of people. I look out, awe-struck and speechless, as the people below clap and cheer, waiting for me to address them.

And then I've been dreaming of white and orange Lumines bricks falling and joining and collapsing, over and over.

Clack-clack clack-clack goes the train on my way home. The rain is falling steadily, streaking the train windows with long silver beads. The heavens are a clash of light and dark, the sun just managing to peek through the billowing grey clouds. I scan the skies, but they are as elusive as ever, those rainbows.

'Come to London with me,' she says. Yes, I say, I would like to drop everything and run. Haven't you ever felt that way, that you could leave here and start life anew? To bathe in the river of absolution, and emerge clean and smooth, unshackled from the sins of your former life. But I can't go. I don't know how. I'm a dreamer by name only.

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream...