Candy Bar

I gasped in mock flattery. “For me?”

The manila envelope and its puckered white sticker bulged with the hard edges of whatever was inside. It was addressed to me.

Elsewhere in the house, a fan whirred.

I tossed the post-it note onto the kitchen counter. Kathy was keeping her unspoken promise to replace my mother, having left me a list of chores to do while she was with the other wobble-eyed quilting ladies from the church. I’d just completed the last item on the list: Check mail.

I furrowed my brow, unbending the paper fastener to flip the envelope open.

Six letters fell from it—five large and swollen, one small and thin—and a small black notebook slipped out after them. Tiny raindrops’ feet pattered on the roof, but a sunlit spray of dust motes still fell upon the letters. I carefully pulled an envelope open in ragged tears, peeking inside. My lungs went dry.

Four silver paper clips poked through a stack of hundred-dollar bills. I counted it, then checked if faces appeared when held to the light. Four thousand dollars, all genuine. Five other letters contained the same. Twenty thousand dollars in cash. In my hands.

“Holy heck.”

I opened the slimmer letter with shaking hands, dazed. Friendly type danced across the page:

Greetings, esteemed participant:

Enclosed is twenty thousand dollars, in cash. Said twenty thousand dollars is the remainder of an initial one hundred thousand dollars. This money has been sent to and returned by twenty-eight other citizens of the United States of America, all of whom were given the instructions listed below:

1. A certain portion of the remainder, which we are not disclosing to you, is yours to spend as you wish. Your allotment is a randomly generated number between one and the total sum of money given to you—which, for you, is $20,000. (In the Moleskine notebook, write down whatever you buy and the items’ costs. If you fail to do so, your prizes will be confiscated/canceled. Until midnight EST on March 30th, this notebook will relay the information to us.)
2. If you spend more than your undisclosed allotment, everything you bought will be confiscated/canceled. (If any prize is irrecoverable, you will be billed for it.)
3. By March 30th, send whatever money you did not use to the return address on the manila envelope. (If we do no not receive the new remainder, your prizes will be confiscated/canceled.)

You may keep the notebook, regardless of whether you keep your prizes.

Good luck, and happy spending!

Sincerest regards,

The $100,000 Team

Visions swam behind my eyes: two hundred emerald bills waterfalled upon me; two million shimmering pennies pooled at my feet.

More money than I’d ever dreamed of tasting seeped down my throat. I was rich.

“Right. Okay. Cool beans,” I whispered, struggling to focus my thoughts. Kathy and my father wouldn’t be home until late; they were going on a date after he was done with work and she with quilting. I had enough time to decide what to do.

I poked through the black notebook numbly, drowning my toes in the thick brown carpet. Most of the other participants had spent more than their share. The smallest allotment so far had been $1,386, the largest $62,546. I looked at the empty harbor after the 28th participant.

What would fill those lines?

For half an hour, I sat there, dreaming, counting, and rubbing green bubbles into my eyes. I could buy a car, college tuition, or any number of things I’d never even wanted before. The notebook’s promises crashed in my ears. March 30th was exactly one week away; I had a week to fish the benefits from my pool of wealth and record my catch.

Eventually, I slipped the letters back into the sticky manila envelope and hid it and the Moleskine in my bedroom.

The first step was to take part of my fortune to the bank to break it down into smaller bills. After Dad and Kathy returned, I asked them to take me. Luckily, one of their few shared traits was a general disinterest in me, and so neither asked much about my money. We got back quickly. I tucked the assortment of bills into my coat pocket.

That night as I lay in bed, the Moleskine’s pale shores beckoned for me to drench them.

The next day, Monday’s pastel sunrise was hidden by the high school’s bulk. I made my way into the building’s brownish-gray halls. One of my friends was, as always, waiting for me by the vending machine, and he smiled as I approached. I turned sharply and allowed the current of students to sweep me the long way to my first period class.

The cash floated in my pocket.

Lectures drifted around my head but didn’t enter; my mind was already crowded with complex, tangled wells of thought. Of course, I wondered who the $100,000 Team was and where they’d gotten their money. Internet searches yielded nothing. I also wondered how they’d know what I bought with the money if I didn’t write it down in my notebook, and how they’d confiscate my prizes if they didn’t know what they were. I figured they’d just bill me for the missing money.

Anyway, who could pass up the opportunity to spend $20,000?

Sometimes, the fluorescent lights of the classroom shined not on my sterile desk but on phantasmic research labs of Caltech. Sometimes, my College Algebra teacher wasn’t returning homework but handing me my PhD.

Sometimes, the expressionless faces in the hallways were dying of thirst in the bright depths of the Sahara. My ocean of wealth mocked them.

I passed by the vending machine on my way to the cafeteria for lunch. I spun to stand before it; my appetite was whetted. I peered through my shivering reflection into the black shelves of candy. Snickers bars had always been a favorite of mine. So, after hesitantly scribbling down my purchase into the notebook, I reached into my pocket and unraveled a one-dollar bill from the wad of cash. I felt nauseous, but I slipped the bill into the vending machine’s slot. D3. A gentle buzz, a twist of silver, and I bent down to collect my candy bar from the belly of the machine. I tucked it into my backpack to eat after lunch.

I ended up forgetting about it.

After school, I hunched on my bed. The TV murmured from the other side of my bedroom door. A wooden pencil twitched in my fingers, and a pad of paper crouched in my lap. Because my allotment was a mystery, I figured the smartest move would be to make a list of prizes I wanted in order of expendability. Then, because my most expendable items could be acquired at local stores, I would ask Kathy or my dad to drive me around on Saturday and Sunday before returning the package.

I scribbled down “new phone case” on the first line, then erased it. The graphite ghost merged with “iPad”, which I then erased as well. I stared at the empty first line before moving onto the second. I would settle on something before the weekend arrived.

The next few days were a blur of nervousness and wonder. The plans I crafted were magnificent ships floating through my dreamscapes, swarming with my whaling crew. Plans to embark consumed me, and I let them. Any profitable trip required a solid foundation, and if all went well, it would be worth it.

My friends texted me, asking what I’d been up to and why I wasn’t answering. Was something wrong? How dare I. Even my ELA and APUSH teachers asked if I was doing alright, to which I responded that I was just a bit tired. My dad and Kathy didn’t notice I was more reclusive than normal, which was expected. I avoided them, my teachers, and my friends as best as I could, preferring to caulk my whaling ship and dream of the creatures I might catch. Who knew what others would do if they knew?

I ended up failing a math exam on Thursday.

Saturday came. My order of stores and items needed adjusting, so I huddled on our dusty blue couch with the bright manila envelope by my side. Gray currents swept across the sky through the window in front of me, and my pencil scraped as I wrote.

Once I was finished, I searched for Kathy, but she wasn’t there. Panic surged through my veins, and I texted her. She called me. My phone trembled as I listened to her explain that she was out with the wobble-eyed quilting ladies for the day—hadn’t I been listening when she’d told me?—and wouldn’t be back until late. Before I hung up, I asked her if she was free after church tomorrow to go shopping and if she could drop off a package of mine at the post office afterward. She said yes, sure, and my Saturday was wasted; cash didn’t work in online transactions, and it was too late to open a checking account.

It was unfortunate that even with my extensive planning, I’d failed to think of opening one.

After completing the necessary steps to prepare my package for its return, I left the envelope flooded with $19,999 on the table so I wouldn’t forget it the next morning.

Kathy didn’t attend church on Sunday; she had “lots of errands to run before shopping the afternoon away.” She had promised to pick me up afterwards.

Worship failed to move me; the tears on others’ faces seemed ridiculous. The sermon was longer than usual, and the message was difficult to understand. The pastor droned on. My nerves buzzed; it took all my willpower to not take out the list and critique it.

At noon, the sermon ended, and I sprang out of my chair as soon as the congregation murmured “amen.” Skip-jogging through the coffee-stained entryway, I burst through the front doors and sprinted to Kathy’s car. I yanked the door open and slid in.

“Alright, where to first?” she asked.

I opened my mouth to answer when I realized the envelope was missing. I’d left it laying across the cup holders before leaving for church, but it was gone. My vision flashed black.

Casually, I hissed at Kathy, “I had an envelope here. What did you do with it?”

“Oh, I figured that while I was out, I might as well drop off your package to the post office. Just faster that way.”

I stared at her. My whaling crew had marooned me. My stomach sank as my ship disappeared over the horizon.

Back home, I sat on my bed. I laid the Moleskine notebook across my lap, and I clutched the Snickers with white knuckles. The TV whispered from the other side of the door.

It wasn’t Kathy’s fault. She hadn’t known because I hadn’t told her.

I watched the Snickers’ glaring cellophane. It could have been a whale. It could have been any number of things, but I’d spent too much time caulking and not enough time sailing.

With twisted lips, I turned to the notebook, flipping through the other participants’ prizes. Wisps of others’ living hopes and dreams floated by me, intangible. What had once been drenched with possibilities was now suddenly drowned.

The twenty-eighth participant’s list ended at my tear-stained section.

I’d interpreted it wrong. It wasn’t some grand adventure I’d failed. There had been no ocean or whale. I’d been stuck in the Sahara with everyone else, but I’d been offered a way to better my life. A pitcher of water had been poured into my cupped hands, and I’d neglected to drink because I’d loved the water. I’d let it drip through my fingers, with almost nothing to show for it.

I whispered aloud the only two words inscribed upon the dry, wrinkled paper:

“Candy bar.”