Paper Rectangles
When i was 8, Mud and I were living with a dude named Elliot, and his 2 kids. One afternoon, mud called me into the bedroom they shared. "Shut the door" she said. So I did, and turned to face her. Mud stepped aside to reveal what was approximately 3-4 grand in cash. 10's 20's 50's and 100's, spread out all over the bed. I asked if I could jump in it. "Yes”, She said. “but I know exactly how much is there, so no pinching" I crawled across the paper pallet and stood up. I kicked my legs out and fell on the pile. The bills flew above my head and quickly floated down. I rolled and writhed. There was so much of it. So many smelly paper rectangles. I started to neatly stack and sort the bills according to denomination. Fanned it all out again, and stacked it back up. I counted it and handed it back to mud asking, when we were leaving for our trip to spend it. I was told he had sold a car, and was going to buy a new one with it. Boring, but that was Elliott. I made a sweet roll to see what it would look like in my pocket…it was cool. Mud pretended to be a customer in a shoe store and I was the owner with an Italian accent for some reason. Mud drew a mustache on my lip with eyeliner, then she and I played like pirates with loot for the next hour before he got home. When he arrived, she grabbed the ponds and wiped off my stache, gave me 5 dollars and told me to go wash my hands and ride my bike to the handy. A fiver was a big deal at the time, but after this experience, it seemed less somehow. I got to the handy, which was a convenient store just past the construction dunes at the end of the subdivision. Sweaty 5 in my fist, I looked around at all it could buy while subtracting from the 5er in my head. I started to feel uncomfortable with the idea of breaking it. I just didn’t want to. Yeah I also wanted things, …but the freedom to choose, to save it and choose later was somehow way more enticing. To play with it, to be what I thought a pirate was. It could be anything, and it could allow me to choose. I asked the clerk for change. “five ones?” i said, and he gave it to me. I stuffed the bills in my shorts pocket, after the sweet roll, it was like nothing at all. I checked my pocket several times on the ride home to make sure they were still in there. When I got home, I took the 5 ones and tried stacking, but it just wasn’t the same. I folded each one neatly and stuffed them into my piggy bank one by one. It was a lackluster moment compared to the writhing, but it sparked an interest. The bills made no sound as I stuffed them in the pig, but knowing they were there made me feel safer somehow. The untapped potential of what I could possibly obtain with enough money was enough to make me happy and give me hope that even my most unlikely dreams were not just possible, but obtainable. I had found a secret power in choice, and feeling prepared when the choosing finally came. .
.
.
@legoule