This Month's Story

Stella saw it first. It was huge. Its light filled both our living room windows. She got up and quickly ran outside. Once there, she yelled for me to come out.

“Oh my gosh. Look, Paul. It’s ending on Dave and Sue’s house! Come quick.”

I didn’t want to get up. I had been napping in the recliner in the living room, and I could see her outside the window yelling for me to get up and come outside.

I could also see what she was so excited about.

A vibrant, unbelievably large rainbow filled the window beyond where she was standing. Actually, it was only part of the rainbow. Although the northern part of it ended on our neighbor’s house in the window to my left, the other end of the rainbow could be seen in the window to my right. There it landed squarely atop a large holly bush in the Urchek’s field.

I looked at the view from both windows for a minute and, without getting up, picked up the phone lying beside the recliner. After a series of rings, my neighbor answered. He seemed to be out of breath.

“Dave, do you see the rainbow?”

“See it? Heck it hit my back yard! I’ve been out there looking for the pot. I’ve been looking like mad. I can’t find it. How big is the pot supposed to be anyway?”

“Black, round with a large handle and, Dave, everyone says that it is filled to the rim with gold!”

“Well, maybe so. But I don’t see it and I can’t find it!”

“It’s got to be there! Keep looking.”

I looked out the living room window, the one on the left, the one that had his house in it. The rainbow was no longer as brilliant as it was; it had started to fade. Even as I watched, there was a definite increase in the fading.

I realized that it would be gone soon.

“You’d better hurry, Dave. I can see the rainbow real good from here. You’re lucky it’s still hitting your house, but to tell you the truth, it looks to me like it’s starting to fade. You know, if it goes away, you’ll have a real tough time finding the gold.”

“I am hurrying! It’s just not here. I’m looking! I’m looking!”

I looked out the window. The end of the rainbow on Dave’s house was fading rapidly.

“Dave, it’s almost gone. You’d better keep looking. It’s got to be there somewhere. Have you looked in back of the garage?”

Dave said something more; whatever he said was garbled. He seemed unhappy, and then abruptly, he hung up.

I stared at the now quiet phone and then put it back down on the side table. I leaned back in the recliner. Stella came in, yelled something unintelligible, looked for and found her camera and went back outside.

I didn’t move.

I watched her for a moment, and then shifted my attention to the living room window to my right. In that window the southern end of the rainbow was still bright, lighting up the holly bush.

I smiled.

I settled back quietly in the recliner and started to doze. I didn’t have to look around; I knew exactly where the gold was.

Late tomorrow evening when the Urchek’s field dries out from the recent shower, I’ll go over there with a shovel and dig around a little. The rain will have softened the ground.

I don’t think I’ll have any trouble.

A FEW DAYS LATER

“Now, I apologize, Mr. La Violette, that you are not the winner of the 105 million dollar Pennsylvania Lottery Grand Prize. But I do hope that receiving the one million dollar consolation prize will be adequate for your needs.”

I nodded my head in a way that would indicate that the lesser amount would be enough, while keeping just the right touch of sorrow on my face to indicate that I was also sad that I had not been able to win the larger prize.

But it really didn’t matter.

Inwardly I was already listing the things I would buy with the one million dollars. To be truthful, the list was very long; with many of the items already purchased in my mind’s eye.

So I nodded, keeping my inner excitement contained, in spite of my outward, hopefully blasé and demure countenance.

What really bothered me, however, was the embarrassing fact that I didn’t remember buying a ticket.

I decided not to bring that up.

The man sitting across from me in my office looked very official, in fact, almost elegant. He had a white, severely trimmed mustache and wore wire-rimmed eyeglasses, all of which seemed to give him added official stature. His hair was also white, almost a glacier white, and he beamed a reassuring smile at me that, with the late afternoon summer sun bathing the room, caused him to seem almost to glow.

“Now, sir, if you will sign right here on the top three copies and initial the bottom twelve, where I have indicated, we will have the money deposited directly to your bank account. In fact, if you call, you will probably see it registered in your account tomorrow.”

I picked up his proffered pen (it said Pennsylvania State Lottery on it in raised gold letters and he had already told me I could keep it as a memento of our transaction) and bent forward to start signing.

At this point, my visitor raised a manicured forefinger to his chin. I stopped the pen poised inches from the papers.

“Oh, I should tell you before I forget, Mr. La Violette, if you prefer, and please note that this is only if you prefer it to be so, instead of US Dollars deposited in your account, we can give you the equivalent amount in Faerie Gold.”

Seeing my astonished look, he hastened to reassure me.

“Oh, please don’t worry. It is real gold. You can cash it in for dollars or use it any way you like.

“If you decide to utilize that option, we have a local deposit very close to here that you can draw on. I believe that at the present rate that gold is being bought and sold, the actual amount you will finally get will be the equivalent of close to 1.5 million US dollars.

“As I mentioned, this is an option, the way you wish to receive the prize money is, of course, up to you.”

With this, my visitor smiled and awaited my choice.

It became very quiet.

I lowered the pen and tried to keep a tremor from my voice. The list of things to purchase that I had originally made in my mind began to stretch on and on, well beyond my ability to imagine any one of them individually.

I began to nod my head as if in deep thought.

“Well, er, yes, I might do that. Yes, Yes. I think I will do that. Now let me see if I understood you correctly. Where exactly did you say the gold was at this time?”

My visitor continued smiling, evidently pleased at my choice. Anxious to help, he got up and went to my office window.

“Oh, very close, I think you can actually see it from here. It’s beside a large holly bush. Yes, indeed you can see it from here!”

With this, he pointed to a spot on the edge of the woods in my neighbor’s open field.

“See, there it is; it’s beside the larger of the two holly bushes in the back end of the field adjoining your land.”

He turned back to me.

“I believe you’ll find the container of gold, actually I’m told it is sort of like a large black cooking pot, is buried on the right side of the larger of …”

“Paul! Paul! Wake up. Wake up. Your supper’s getting cold. I’ve been calling you.”

I shook my head and, completely befuddled, sat up and looked around my office.

I looked up at Stella still hovering over me.

I had evidently been napping on my sofa in my office and even in my half-awake state could see that my visitor was gone.

I was alone!!

I looked frantically at Stella and started to protest.

“You could at least have waited...”

“Waited? Waited for what? Your supper is on the table.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Till I had signed the papers.”

“What?!?”

Dazed, I looked around desperately, trying to accept the fact that my visitor had vanished.

“Now, everything is gone ...”

Stella gave me a long look, said something about supper being on the table and turning, left the room.

I shook my head, befuddled.

I jumped up and went to the office window. I could see the two holly bushes in the Urchek’s field. They were where they always were. Now, their permanence in the field became very important.

Did he say the right or left?

The meal was good, despite the stringent diet that the doctors had imposed as a result of Holly’s discovery of my health problem. In my last visit, the doctor had been very adamant on what I could and could not eat. At the time it seemed dire.

Evidently Stella had listened and I was now on the diet he had prescribed. On paper it seemed very dull. However, Stella can make any dish a delight and this evening the meal, while following what I felt were his absurdly strict diet guide lines, was up to her best standards.

I cleaned my plate.

With the main part of the meal over, I was eating pumpkin pie (reduced to being placed in a small custard dish sans pie crust), I brought myself to ask Stella a question that had been bothering me throughout supper.

“Do you think the Urcheks would mind if I went over later and dug around their holly bushes a little?”

Stella stared at me.

“What are you talking about? Are you still on that …?”

“Look, I don’t have anything planned for later this evening, and I thought, you know, with it being summer and all and the sun going down so late, I could just dig around a little…”

I stopped and looked pleadingly at her.

“What do you say? I wouldn’t hurt anything.”

She continued to stare at me for a long moment and then, still without a word, got up and took her time pouring my coffee from our one cup espresso unit.

She was stalling and I knew it.

What was wrong?

I watched her put a half a teaspoon of sugar in my cup (again my diet), stir it, set it in front of me and, then sitting back down, gave me another long look and shook her head.

“You better forget it.”

“Why?”

She hesitated moving her finger over some invisible spot on the table. Finally, she spoke.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you. Now don’t get mad. I saw Dave digging around those two holly bushes yesterday.”

“What!!”

“Yes and when he left, he was dragging something heavy in a black bag and he was smiling. I couldn’t tell what it was he found.”

She turned away to carry my pie plate to the sink. I watched her, and yet I almost didn’t catch her last remark.

“I should say that, despite it being heavy, he did seem very happy.”