The Choice

Felix had walked the path from the grain mill home every day after work for forty-years, since his fourteenth birthday. After his dad died, he walked it alone. He preferred the dirt road and bird song to the exhaust smoke and human chatter over on the main street. Surrounded by trees and sunshine, it was easier to forget he didn’t have a car. Or a wife to drive around with. Or somewhere interesting to go.

He was too tired today for whistling or watching the wrens dance. He slugged along with his focus on the roots trying to bring him down. His stomach tightened in anticipation of the boiled ham sandwich he’d have for his dinner. The same every night.

He stopped. Not sure why. He took a step back. He squinted at the undergrowth then knelt and slid back the wall of wild grass covering a deep notch in the base of an oak. He pulled the zip top bag out of the tree, grumbling. People always leaving their trash around.

His pulse rose at the sight of money through the plastic. An entire stack of crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. And next to the cash, a little black book. Felix sat back on the heels of his worn boots. He looked around, adrenaline banishing his fatigue. He guilted himself for hoping he could keep it, that the book didn’t list an owner.

Nerves sparking, he crawled off the path and sat at the base of a steady oak. He opened the bag and counted. Twenty thousand dollars. Nine-month’s pay. More cash than he’d ever seen in one place. He smelled the fresh paper, inhaled it like a drug.

This money could change his life. Make him something. He could approach Sallie with more in his hands than his battered old heart.

Barely breathing, he withdrew the book as if it were an injured dove. He ran calloused fingers over the soft leather and peeled open the cover.

Words were written on the lined pages in a careful script.

6/1

Plan is moving well. Found money. Do not believe it is cursed.

Felix set the money off his lap and onto the grass as if it had turned into a snake.

6/2

Trouble with my map. Reworking entrance plan into the caves.

6/3

Proud new owner of the Vorchive treasure. But trouble. I am being followed by something. I stashed the jewels in the I-know-what and hid the cash (all but 20k to make do for now) in the I-better-remember where. Red boils started on torso and hands. Connected to curse or coincidence? I’m hoping I’m allergic to oak trees.

6/7

Hiding in forest. Couldn’t write earlier because of the pain and the visions. I think maybe possibly probably the curse is real. Fairies are definitely real. Scratch that. I’m not certain anymore. I suppose this is my own fault. Well, this is the end for me. No one who touches the Vorchive treasure lives longer than one week. I knew it. I ignored it. It is too late for me as once the rash comes, the end is inevitable. Curse my arrogance. Curse this curse. Here’s to hoping no one finds this money and touches it. BUT IF YOU DO, SAVE YOURSELF AND BURN IT.

Bye, world.

Felix brought a trembling hand to his throat. He jerked his fingers away and stared at them as if they were poison. He read through the journal again, then slowly closed the little black book.

He exhaled. He wasn’t an educated man; his formal schooling had ended at age fourteen when he was old enough to work the mill, but he was sharp enough to reason out the two options. The money was cursed, or it was not. But how to know? He could do so much with that money: buy a car, ask Sally to dinner, get new boots so his feet didn’t ache after a long day at the mill.

A potential new life or a potential quick end.

He carefully closed the plastic bag and stood. Walking helped him think. By the time he got home, he knew there was only one answer. Risking death was not worth twenty thousand dollars. He must burn it and live. Oh, but. BUT.

He looked around his one room cottage. It seemed so small tonight, dank and sad. What was life if it was only this? Could he stand to never know what if? What if he could live like a king?

Felix lit the kindling he’d set up this morning under the logs in his fireplace. His ham lay forgotten in the fridge as he contemplated. This money could change his life. And he decided.

It would.

He opened the bag and pulled out the crisp fresh cash. He fanned the bills with his thumb, the scent of possibility washing over his face and into his bones. The whir of wealth filled his vision.

Yes.

New money. New man.

Thank you. He kissed the stack of green potential.

Then one by one he placed the papers on the flames. Every one. He was loath to part with the beautiful book. He had nothing of such quality, but he could not risk keeping it. Into the fire it went. The heat licked at Felix, lighting the embers that had long lay dormant in his breast.

When nothing but ash remained of the curse, Felix stood. Washed, shaved, and dressed in his finest plaid shirt, he gathered his meager savings from under a loose floorboard. Money he had earned. Feeling like the richest man in the world, he strode out of his house and crossed the pasture to where the widow Sallie sat shelling peas on her porch.

He smiled at her. She smiled back. He invited her to dinner. She invited him in.

He said yes.

Felix spent the rest of his days finding joy and living fully, always grateful to the twenty thousand dollars and the little black book that changed his life.