A Magical Modern Art Piece

A duck with twelve feet, coated with some kind of bronze paint and possibly mold. It was unimpressive, but it was an oddity, it makes sense to find it at an oddities shop. An old barber joint repurposed to house a wide variety of left behind craft projects and junkyard findings. This line of retail is a bit of a scam, you can throw any old concoction together and slap a price tag on it. They didn’t even bother to take out the swivel chairs, still bolted to the floor. Some stacked with boxes full of posters or a few dozen eccentric coats, another was set behind a counter, and on it was Phil.

Damn I hate Phil. That pretentious prick with his Holier-than-thou attitude, I really do not want to, in any way, interact with this guy. The only problem is I want to make a purchase. It would seem that the old adage is true, because in this sea of other’s trash I have found my own little treasure. A small sketchbook, hundred pages or so, with a beautiful black hard cover with a nice subtle shine. It just looked cool, I knew I had other sketchbooks at home I haven’t finished drawing in but alas I lack self-control on Wednesdays. I wasn’t an expert on the quality of sketching paper but running my fingertips along the pages I was under a considerable impression that this item was of rather high quality, and yet the price tag had a measly, pathetic, and alluring ‘5$’ written on it. I cautiously tiptoed to the counter, trying not to step on what I assumed to be the store's merchandise littered all over the floor.

“Hey” I say.

“Hey” Phil replied. This guy, this fucking guy. Didn’t even bother looking up from his phone, honestly the nerve of this man. No respect for the customer. God I hope he gets hit by a…. a heavy object or something.

“I think I’ll just be getting this guy right here.” I plopped the sketchbook onto the counter. Phil, like the damn sloth that he is, slowly reached out his hand and fumbled it around in an open drawer. Still not looking up from his phone.

I hate that this man gets paid more than me.

Eventually, he pulls out a key and opens up the cash register.

“Alright, so….that’s going to be...ten dollars.”

“Ten?” I squint activating my 'angry and self-righteous' persona. “The tag says five”.

Phil, this sack of decrepitude, finally looks up from his phone to glance at the sketchbook.

“Oh my bad, that’ll be five dollars.” Persona deactivated.

“Cool” I tossed that loser the money and concluded the worst part of my day.

Of course the first thing I wanted to do is draw in my new purchase but it wouldn’t be until I got lunch at the my local pizza corner that I made a beautiful discovery. A holy, sanctimonious and ludicrous discovery. For just as I was getting some of the finest pizza grease all over my face, I was delighted and perplexed to find the greatest of all gifts within these pages.

Money.

A decent amount of money, in fact quite a lot of money. I quickly glanced around the pizza joint, the only other people around were the cashier, busy at work, and another customer on their phone. I discreetly flipped through the bills.

Twenty thousand dollars.

I was shook. I couldn’t believe it. Two hundred distinctively fresh bills. My head started to turn.

Twenty thousand dollars.

Was I about to cry?

Twenty thousand dollars.

My mind raced, paced, and double laced. I was a dishwasher, making...I don’t know….maybe fourteen thousand a year after taxes. This….sum that has just been brought to me...it opened within my mind mental doors that had been closed for plausible eternities. I could pay off a huge chunk of my debt, or….or buy myself nicer, healthier food from now on, or make genuine investments in stocks. Despite what earlier text may have hinted, I was certainly not crying at this moment in time. I was merely overwhelmed by….just the sheer relief such an amount of money meant for me.

Where did this money come from? Perhaps this sketchbook was donated, or sold to the oddities shop without realizing money was left in it.

Someone's life savings?

A sliver of guilt entered my inner thoughts, but it soon left. People need to take care of their money, hide it in clever places, or just put it in a bank. Besides, how would I ever be able to find and contact this person who ‘theoretically’ misplaced their money? I’d have to go back and talk to Phil, that piece of shit. Should I donate it? It would go to the needy, but...aren’t I the needy? I’m not exactly swimming in cash, in fact I’m swimming in straight debt.

No, this was my money now. I would do with it, what I deemed fit, and what I deemed fit at this moment was to pay for my pizza, and leave a tip.

I walked to the counter.

“Hey do you guys take hundreds?” I said flashing a bill. “Unfortunately it’s all I have on me.”

“Sure ” The cashier took the bill and as he was giving me my change, noted the stunning perfection of the cash. “You must have just come back from the bank ‘cuz this bill is pristine. Payday?”

“You bet” I lied, and left a twenty on the counter.

I practically did improvisational jazz dancing on my way home.

Goodbye poverty. You know what I should do? I should draw, moments like these are perfect for drawing, I was musing what pencil I should use as I opened the sketchbook.

Wait. Was that there before? I might have missed it but I swore I could remember the first page being blank. Before my eyes in the top left of the very first page was a beautifully drawn and rendered sketch of a slice of pizza and a fountain pop. To make things even spicier, on the fountain pop cup was a small but undeniable logo of the pizza joint I was just in.

What in the fuck.

A coincidence perhaps, maybe a lesser person would be scared by this but not I. My ego was too big. I scanned the immediate locale for places to consume, and there it was, across the street. The old office supply store. I walked in as casually as I thought necessary for the occasion. I could use this money to start my career, and that needs the right equipment. I went on my first shopping spree in years, binders, pencils, a new laptop, a work desk with a sexy hutch. It had been so long since I went shopping for myself. In fact it may have gotten a bit out of hand. I bought too much for myself to carry home, but no worry to be had here, a quick call and I had three taxis taking all my stuff home. Such was the excitement and emotion of the day that I would not open the sketchbook again until later that night.

Huh.

It would appear that a certain amount of the book was no longer blank. The first dozen pages or so were filled with a masterful collection of sketches, all exact depictions of what I had just bought. What a peculiar thing, what a strange, mystical thing. The sketches were all of different sizes, and some were even copied on multiple consecutive pages. A click went off in my mind as I was observing this magical curiosity. Each sketch's size was directly proportional to how much money was spent on it. This came to about a hundred dollars a page, with a candy bar I bought taking up only a square centimeter or so, and my new four hundred dollar desk repeated on four full pages.

Interesting. I was in an experimental mood, plus I needed groceries so I took two of the bills and the sketchbook out with me. I wanted to see this in action.

I decided to buy a block of the most expensive cheese in the store, with the sketchbook opened to the next blank page.

I handed the clerk my cash. Nothing.

He pressed a button and the cash register flung open. Nothing.

He placed the cash in the registry and magic whistled before my eyes. Pencil lines of varying size and boldness began tracing themselves on the page, and in only a matter of seconds, a wondrous sketch of a large block of asiago cheese had made the upper left quadrant of the page its home.

Cool.

“Sir? Excuse me sir I need to help the next person in line”

“Oh shoot, sorry.” I walked out of the store, my nose in the sketchbook. I later decided to put the rest of this magical money in the bank, would this take away their magical properties? I didn’t know. The sketches were cool, but I bought this book because I wanted draw my own sketches, not to see someone else's. I did however, want answers regarding this item, and to get the answers I’d have to go talk to Phil. For some reason, going to chat with him now didn’t seem too bad. I began to wonder if the real reasons I heavily disliked this guy were financial, perhaps it was merely the fact I knew his income was significantly higher than mine that made me want to knee him in the face.

Perhaps.

“Hey” I say.

“Huh?.” Still looking at his phone.

What is wrong with you?

“Anything you can tell me about this?” With an outstretched arm I slid the sketchbook right under his nose. “I bought it a few days ago.”

Phil, amazingly, looked from his phone, picked it up and flipped through it.

“What do you wanna know about it? Seems like a normal sketchbook. Oh wow! These are awesome, did you draw these?”

“No.” I growled. “When I bought the book I found some money in it, and whatever I buy with that money, shows up as a sketch.”

“Oh. Cool.” Phil said staring at me with his stupid face, damn I hate his face. “Yeah my guess is a wizard probably made it or something.”

“A wizard?”

“Yeah we get wizard stuff in all the time, see the sign?”

Phil pointed to a big painted sign that read:

Some items are magical in nature.

“Well why-….I’m sorry was that sign always there?”

“Yup”

“I don’t remember seeing it before, but whatever! Why would a wizard make something like this?”

“Man I don’t know, a criticism of capitalism or something, beats me.”

I sigh a dramatic, weary sigh. I don’t like talking to Phil. He picked up the book again. “You still have any of the money you found?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want people messing with it so I put it in the bank.”

Phil shook his head. “Never put magic money in the bank bro.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t know, they just told me to never do that when I started working here.”

Just as that prick was finishing talking, lines began to stir on the blank pages.

Wait, what?

They danced, forming...a pack of skittles. I yanked the book back. Dozens, hundreds of sketches of skittle packs were filling the page. No! All the pages! What was happening? Was my money gone? Was this all a magically elaborate joke? Skittles? Who would buy this many? There were thousands now. My head roared with possible financial woes. I reached the end, as the last bottom right corner was filled with a small but astounding drawing of a skittles packet.

I stared dumbfounded.

Phil, that fuck, was taking a long, maybe deliberate slurp from a fountain pop.