Last night, Yi Chun-Yong became the first 'winner' of North Korea's Democratic People's Reunification Lottery (DPRL).
Unlike any other lotto, North Korea's version is a state-sanctioned penalty.
Every citizen is automatically entered into a weekly lottery but if your number is selected, you 'win' the privilege of paying the state a fortune (the amount it costs to fund 'reunification efforts' with the South over the past week).
Failure to pay means you, your family and successive generations will work to pay it off at a labour camp.
This can only be avoided by buying a lotto ticket to opt-out of the 'prize draw'.
Nation-wide fear of winning the jackpot has made North Korea the only country in the world where 100% of the citizens play the lottery. Until this past Friday.
Yi Chun-Yong, a 59-year-old hospital janitor, did not get a chance to buy a lotto ticket this week. In fact, he did not leave the Kim Man Yu hospital at all. With the second wave of COVID-19 unofficially sweeping the country, Mr. Chun-Yong has been working triple shifts and sleeping in the cremation room 'because it's warmer in there lately.'
He was overworked and too exhausted to remember to buy a ticket and his number came up.
In the middle of a performance for children in the paediatric ward, dressed as a local government mascot who teaches children not to eat fertiliser, Mr. Chun-Yong was surprised by the DPRL officials and handed the cheque / invoice of $11.5 million.
He stayed in costume as he was led out the building past an epilepsy-inducing press corps and into an unmarked van.
He has not been seen since but according to nightly news readers, 'his old, crooked back has found strength and realigned itself with the fortitude of nobility to serve his country so distinctly and proudly.'
This week's lottery draw will be Friday, 5PM (or 1700 Kim-cycles according to communist time.)