he threw up all over himself.
In the mess on his lap Spinoza saw a small and shiny square,
something he had seen somewhere before. Deep in his monkey
memory he recalled that it had something to do with a previous life
he once had, when things hadn’t seemed quite as clear as they were
now. He picked it up, wiped it off, and bounded over to the others to
see what they could make of it.
Harvey continued to stare into the sun, which became brighter the
longer he stared. Within moments it had gone from yellow to white
and now whiter even than that. His entire field of vision paled, and
now he felt the whiteness suffusing his entire body, filling him like a
drink of ether, a draught of the purest water. A great weight left his
person. He felt himself floating.
Something struck him on the head. He reached down to pick it
up. It was a quarter. Then a dime fell by his feet. A Greek coin. A
Roman one. A Mayan. An Abyssinian. And so on.
Money began slowly to rain down upon the pool area. It picked
up intensity and then fell like hailstones. All sorts of metal currency
plunged into the octopool. They were all forced to take cover inside.
After two hours of waiting in wonder, the storm finally let up and
they ventured warily outside. The pool was full to overflowing with
money.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Don Wong said. “There must be gazillions
in there.”
A piece of old and badly-weathered cardboard debris fluttered
down upon the mountain of change. He bent over to pick it up. A
story had long ago been scribbled upon it. He read the portion that
was still legible.
“…and they bet everything they had on the future.”
H O L Y S H I T !
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