Enjoy it kid

“I don’t understand. What is this? Hush money or something?”

“I don’t know dude. This guy in a black cloak thing just gave me the envelope and said to give it to you and that, I quote, you’d understand.”

The two waited in silence.

“Okay, so… I’m gonna just…”

And he was gone, jogging back down the road in the direction he’d come.

Casting a dubious glance around the immaculate street he slowly shut the door, gaze on the envelope as he made his way through his show home.

$20,000 should’ve felt… thicker.

He laid the notes out on his dining table. Perfect piles that didn’t weigh as much as they should have.

SOON.

The note was so neat. So perfect. So… unsurprising.

He flipped it over.

ENJOY IT KID. TIME'S UP.

Kid.

35 years old.

Barely a kid anymore.

“Enjoy it,” he scoffed. “How exactly do I enjoy it?”

So he did what most people would, or wouldn’t, do. He made origami figures with some of the notes. He flashed it around his living room like he was some high roller on a winning streak. He searched online for the most obscure and expensive items he could find. Movie relics, coveted books, expensive cars. All the things he could’ve afforded without the envelope. All the things he already had.

He sent photos of himself in a bath filled to the brim with notes… though it was less notes and more artful editing.

Still.

He posed. He played. He flicked. He fantasized. He pretended, until finally he had expended all the ridiculous things he could think of.

Back at the dining table he sat. The ticking of the clock he had never brought suddenly louder in that pristine house.

SOON.

Green eyes stared at the notes, back in their perfect little piles.

ENJOY IT KID. TIME'S UP.

If only he had, enjoyed it. If only he’d worked less and dreamed more. If only he knew then what he knew now. His gaze fell to the empty mantle across the room. The single pair of shoes by the door. The impeccable, quiet, lonely space around him like a prison he’d sold his soul for.

If only he knew then… Maybe he would’ve chosen differently.

ENJOY IT KID.

He would.

He still could. Maybe.

Spring time held a bitter tang in the air. The taste of pollen and hope blossoming with every crisp breeze. It had always been his favourite time of year. Pulling his leather jacket tighter around his stomach he sat quietly on the park bench. His favourite pair of jeans faded with half a life time of memories; it had been here when he’d first made his deal. Here where his life had begun; here where his ticking clock had begun.

Sitting on that park bench in the middle of that bustling inner-city park, he seemed almost… peaceful.

Fifteen years to the day.

Fifteen years he had sat on that same bench, talked life and living and what it would take.

Fifteen years he had waited.

The green-eyed boy wasn’t so boyish anymore.

TIME'S UP.

“So… what’d you spend it on?”

He eyed the cloaked figure beside him a moment.

“Well, I used all the notes as a bath. That was gratifying.”

The figure bobbed its head, “sure.”

“Then I got one of those crazy $500 steaks delivered to my house.”

If the figure had an eyebrow, he would’ve cocked it.

“That wasn’t out of the twenty thousand though.”

A pause.

“No. No it wasn’t.”

“So, what’d you do with it?”

“Does it matter? I mean, isn’t my fate sealed already? Aren’t you here to collect on our deal?”

“Sure.”

“So… why does it matter what I did with it?”

“Because; I’ve been doing this for… well…” he waved a boned hand in the air half-heartedly, “since the beginning and I’m curious.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you a deal.”

The cloaked figure turned slightly, “careful boy, that’s my territory.”

“Tell me why you sent me a random envelope of cash and I’ll tell you what I did with it.”

Why not.

“I thought it fitting that you finished this deal the same way you started it.”

He smiled, a distant memory tugging at his chest. He sucked in a deep breath savouring the taste of clean air and the last lingering smell of life.

“I put it in a little black book and left it with someone that needed it more than me.”

ENJOY IT KID.

They sat a while longer, the world buzzing like it always did, like it always would.

No one noticed when the man sitting alone on the bench suddenly disappeared without a trace.

No one saw the cloaked figure reach a bone hand into his pocket and pull out a little black book with a young girl’s name scrawled in the most perfect print on its cover.

No one saw the ending of that book change from March 5, 2022 to March 15, 2082.

Not a hundred metres away no one saw that young girl’s mother break down in tears as she clutched a little black book to her chest.

ENJOY IT KID. YOUR TIME IS NOW.

If he’d have had muscles or skin, he would’ve smiled.