Some people in the jeweller’s where he used to shop seemed to recognise him so he left. In the pound store the prices were still too high. He grabbed a handful of plastic earrings from a stand and bolted. They recognised him in the pound store too. Nobody gave chase.
Written in response to a request for a tweet-length story from @ellipsiszine 16/12/21
I’m turning the world, said Money. But you’ve only turned it halfway, said Sam. That’s how coins fall from pockets, said Money.
Jac mixed each drop with amber, pulled and twisted with pliers and a knife forming teardrop red pearls. She would show them blood money.
To look at him, you wouldn’t know. Thinning hair on an over-large, unusually flattened skull, a greyed shirt and pullover habit, rigorously black socks, none of these gave a clue to the howl at the centre of his existence. He had such a horror of emptiness, always avoiding the void, he would colour in all the zeros in any document he saw. Colleagues learned to accommodate him, made sure as many spreadsheet figures as possible were rounded up. He said he would have liked to have been an accountant but there were too many nothings in finance. People smiled gently.
The man who helped pull my car out the ditch wouldn’t take any money. Not a cent. Just my little finger to wear on a string round his neck.
simonsalento 