Lemonada

Wen

He clutched the envelope firmly, his head swarming in circles with bewilderment. He had a feeling that he knew what was inside but he dared not take a peek for horror of finding what he had presumed it to be. He had left it untouched for almost a week, and his curiosity was digesting him raw. 

The man's stomach growled loudly, announcing that it was craving nourishment. With annoyance, he headed towards a hamburger store at the corner of the street. It was rather dull in appearance but bustling with customers. Some wind chimes above him announced his arrival when he opened the door. Nobody gave him a single glance although the ringing gave him quite the jolt.

"One double cheese burger," he warily ordered, having waited a full thirty minutes in an infinite line of hungry businessmen, tourists and construction workers. 

After having received his order, he carried his bag of fast food outside and promptly sat down on the rim of a small stone hedge bordering a massive tree. He took a ginormous bite out of it, holding the burger upside down for better grip. This was a trick he had acquired after having eaten hamburgers for the past eleven years, breakfast, lunch and dinner. He must have been famished because he consumed the whole thing in less than five minutes, even as to commemorating the finale with the lick of his fingers. The meal was satisfying, especially since there were days he spent without being able to gather enough to buy a single kid's burger. A double cheeseburger was definitely a king's palate.  

Suddenly reminded of the envelope dilemma, he retrieved it from his pocket and set it down on his lap. Though his fingers were still quite sticky from meat patty juices and ketchup, he picked up the envelope and ripped it open after one prolonged inspection of the foreign object. His fingers struggled to clamp onto the slip of paper inside the envelope because it was so thin. 

Once he had the piece of paper pinched between his thumb and his index finger, he reluctantly drew it out. 

At first, he had thought that it was a dollar bill but it wasn't. Instead, it was a messily-written strip of paper with blotchy ink. It was definitely not what he had expected. 

He turned the paper over in his fingers. There was writing scrawled on both sides, covering the entirety of the note. He put the paper away in his back pocket, vowing to read it later when he had time. He often had difficulty reading because words always played tricks on his eyes. 

The man stood up to leave but then sat himself back down. The note was buried deeply inside his thoughts and he just couldn't ignore it momentarily. Taking the paper again in his two hands, cradling like it was Thumbelina, he set in motion attempting to conjoin the letters that were aligned together on the page. Eventually, he could make out, "lemon", "life" or "wife" and "thank you" but nothing else. The whole afternoon passed by until he could not take it any longer, and he asked a pudgy little preteen to read it out loud for him. 

At first, the diabolical kid refused to do it for him unless he would pay a considerable sum of five dollars. However, after thirty minutes of bartering and pleading with him, he eventually got that annoying kid to agree. This was of course, at the loss of his precious baseball cap that he had found abandoned in the park around three quarters of an year ago. The man was sullen about the trade but he really wanted to resolve the matter with the letter as soon as possible. 

"What does it say?" He grimaced at the kid, hoping that intimidation would have some noticeable positive effect on the kid's smug little grin: that is to turn it upside down into a frown. 

The kid had pin straight hair that was parted straight down the middle like the roof of a standard shaped house. It was not a very flattering look, and it bothered the man so much that he wanted to buy a pair of scissors with his impoverished piggy bank and chop off the kid's hair himself. Even he had better standards than this one, he snorted to himself. 

The roof-hair boy and his up-turned nose gave him a glare. "Hold on a sec, you imbecile of a man. What are you? Uneducated? Oh wait, yes you are." He brought a finger up to his mouth and hissed. "Oh, burn!" 

"Give back my cap then," the man retorted, reddening with anger. 

The boy cleared his throat and lifted an eyebrow nonchalantly. "Don't feel like it. Anyways, I think I got the gist of the letter. I'll read it out for you the way that I see it because some of the writing is a bit unclear". The pig-nosed kid was evidently concentrated on the paper note even though he was initially very energetic. 

"Where'd you get this?" The boy asked, not taking one glance off of the paper. 

The man scowled. He had "hired" this young juvenile delinquent for a private reading, not an investigation session. "None of your business," he muttered hoarsely. 

"Well, I'm wondering cause this is really weird," the boy remarked, absolutely unconcerned for the man's emotional state of being. The man began tapping his foot, antsy with all the unnecessary wait. 

"Okay. Dear Mr. anonymous, I wanted to thank you all these years but I didn't know quite how. So I wrote this letter just in case you would suddenly appear and I could finally materialize my gratitude. I really owe it to you, and I'm forever in debt." 

The boy creased his forehead with strain as he tried to read the next line. "I don't know what this says," he pointed out. When the man didn't give him any sign of acknowledging him, he gave up and persisted in reading the next line of the paper slip.

"Um... When wife gives you lemons," he stated rather unconvincingly, "make a... million dollars out of it". 

The next bit of reading was rather smooth and uninterrupted as the writing had eventually cleared up. "I hope that I can be an impact to your life just as you have been to mine. Please, it is not much but take the humble sum inside the envelope and use it wisely. I have nothing to spend it on anymore because I am just an old man, and my wife is just an old woman. If you are not sure what to spend it on, perhaps investing would do you some good. I have an old lemonade stand. It's a creaky, little-to-be-desired stand but it's still got a few ample years ahead of it. I would like to leave this in your hands as part of my thanks. My friend Frank has been managing the stand for a couple of years now since my wife became sick. It's located across the street from the Anchor Cow. I already notified my friend about you so you can have it once you show him this letter. I hope you can make good use of this small fortune. Good luck. Sincerely, Tom." 

The boy thrust his hand into the envelope unwarrantedly. 

"There's nothing in there. Only paper note," the man apprised him. He too had been a pinch disappointed to have searched it and come out empty-handed except for the note. The man snatched away the letter from the boy before he had time to react and run away with it. 

"Where is Anchor Cow?" The man demanded once he had regained his senses from this overwhelming news. The boy snickered with bemusement as he pointed at the ground right below them. 

"We're already at Anchor Cow".

Note: Anchor Cow is the name of the hamburger restaurant. 

And the phrase that was actually in the letter was, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" but the kid read it wrong.