My Journal of Weekend Write-Ins

The Sins of Wealth

"Rich!" Sally gasped. The bag of gold coins on her lap meant he wasn't lying.

She still saw the boy from next door. He had not only been her best friend but her first love. His sage eyes melted her when they lit up with a smile.

Finding it hard to stand she sat down on the broken steps. Sitting made her feel stable and gave her the time to think.

He was a lot taller than the last time she saw him. His back was straight and the hollowness in his cheeks had filled out.

Sally felt his gaze, he studied her studying him.

The easy goofy grin spread on his lips. Yup, he was still the same, always trying to put her at ease.

"It's not bad," he said.

She didn't know how to tell him it was worse than he knew. He would be shunned. Everyone would gossip about him and equate him to the Underlord.

Question flooded her mind. Why? How? When? Then her brain tried to puzzle a solution. None of her ideas seem plausible, even denouncing it was not enough.

Sally had seen what had happened to Mrs. Bertha, such a sweet and kind woman. It hadn't been her fault that her husband had left it to her in his will. He had been from the outer worlds, an exotic fellow.

She could still hear Mrs. Bertha's soft pleas, "but don't you see we all benefit? I want to use it to build a store here. One where we can get all the things we need and not have to wait until the Orcay come pulling their carts."

The convenience had almost swayed Sally. For a moment she imagined all the possibilities. But the Comity had voted on banishment. The ashes from her house still remained with the sign, Polluted by Greed.

Sally shook her head.

"You can't tell anyone," she concluded.

Luke sighed but nodded.

She took his hand and led him inside her shack. He stopped to touch the hole covered with plastic by the window. This was the only home she knew. The softness in Luke's eyes as he pressed the bubbling duct tape made her cheeks flush.

The only other time she had felt this sensation was after she had found a gold coin while playing hide and seek with Luke. The twinkle in his eyes when he saw the radiating yellow in her palm, should have warned her of what was to come.

When the Orcay had come she ventured to their carts. They brought the usual nearly rotten food, but in the midst of grey there was a sprig of green. She knew it to be a holy herb. Thinking of her sick brother she had presented the gold coin. The echoing silence that followed still haunted her. With no coin and no holy herb, she had been chased out from the carts.  At school, she had been made to stand in front of her class. It took weeks for her usual friend to talk to her again.

Luke had threatened to go to the Orcay and retrieve the coin. It was then that he had become her best friend.

Her cheeks flushed again but for a different reason. She smiled at Luke.

"I'm going to make you my famous 'everything and nothing' stew," she said as she grabbed all the scraps from the leaking cold box.

They ate quietly except for their growling stomachs. She put down her spoon and looked around her house and wondered, was being poor really that holy? Was Rich, a sickness? Luke didn't have the black fog of putridness coming out of his mouth. And were the glimmering gold coins the root of evil?

She shook her head of the rest of the thoughts and focused on the solution; the only way is to find out.

"Luke, take me to see the other worlds," she said and watched as his eyes lit up, noticing that among the sage there were flecks of honey. He had kept his promise and brought her back not only one gold coin but many.

Sally knew that the truth laid out there and she wanted to see it for herself. She picked up her spoon and continued to eat. The soup tasted better.