If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time
He led me to a slit in the earth, and I slid through it into the sunshine. “Don’t forget me,” the Old Man whispered as I gulped fresh air and took in the scene around me. A fenced enclosure. A horse or two. My own land. When I squinted, I saw the metal of my still gleaming through the trees on the other side of the divide.
And, so it was that I commenced the grand art of cave tour guide, taking paying customers through a crack on my own land. With the Old Man’s help, we charted the biggest drop-off’s, the darkest caverns, the bits with the biggest echo for target practice, and the best spots for adult refreshment. It was an underground respite from the stuffy, judgmental world.
I led my charges crawling on hands and knees across foot-wide ledges with no barrier to break their falls. We used Chinese fireworks to light up the tightest spaces. Some of the men challenged each other to duels of honor, their guns reverberating for hours around the buried spaces. We drank. We broke bottles, shot them to smithereens.
Sometimes, before the lights went out, I saw the Old Man, shimmering in the fringes, an elusive smile stretched across his skull. He left tokens, little pieces of the place for people to take as souvenirs of their visit to his grave. A rock. Some fur. A dried fish with no eyes. A startled bat.
I made more money underground than I did above it. In fact, I became a very rich man.
It was several years before the Old Man extracted his payment……….
A fiction series to explore a place. Who knows where I will go, but it will NOT be Wonderland. Read the first installment here, the second installment here, the third installment here and the fourth installment here.
Oh my but this is a delicious turn! I wouldn’t have in any way seen a positive come out of that big hole in the ground! But there’s another turn coming somewhere, so I’d better not get too comfortable! There are some great word choices in here…I particularly like the reference to “through a crack on my own land.” Also “It was an underground respite from the stuffy, judgmental world.” The characters voice is so strong in some of your descriptions!
I did not intend to stick with him this long, Debra. I’m glad he keeps talking to me.
Happily reading along, thinking all’s well that ends well, and then….. That last line brought an instantaneous chill! I never saw it coming!
Good. I hoped no one would.
The devil always gets his due, and the happy benefactor forgets that one must pay the piper. I can’t resist a good platitude. Your writing is so fine!
Thank you. Looking forward to lunch today.
That is where it gets good. When it is time for the payment to be collected. Everything comes with a price, and no matter how hard we resist or deny, the there is always a time of collection.
As they say, payback’s a bitch.
Every bargain does not have an unfortunate payback. We’ll see how our man turns out…….
Never said that the payback is always unfortunate. Sometimes, we get more – in a good way, than we bargained for. Although, truth be told, it goes the other way too.
Uh-oh. And just as I was starting to like the old man…
You may like him yet. We’ll see.
Oh I can hardly wait….
I still have to write the one for tomorrow………
This is getting better and better Andra – and I can now sleep with the light off! (Can I?)
Are you? I’m sure you’re in bed by now.
Congratulations on your Freshly Pressed!!
Yes and thanks!
Ah, you have that hook just before the end down to a tee….off to read the next instalment.
They tell me the hook is the essence of writing………