Ecstasy Of Gold

Contributed by Dan Lester on 10/08/09

I grew up in the suburbs, but it was only a ten minute walk away from acres of farmland. I used to got there when I wanted to be alone and had nowhere else to go. I’d walk nervously past herds of cows and sit on a turnstile smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Once I was there with a friend called Eddie, both of us skiving off from school, but unable to go home because our parents were in. We’d had an argument on the walk over and so by the time we found ourselves in cowland, neither wanted to speak to the other. We were walking along on opposite sides of the public footpath, when Eddie noticed the guy. The guy was at the side of the path, looking a lot like a marionnette that had been tossed aside by an unfeeling puppeteer. He was wearing what we later realised were prison clothes and had blood all down his left side. Eddie held back but I walked up for a closer look.

“Water,” the guy gasped. I just stood there. I had no water to give, and wasn’t sure what to do. “£100,000 for some water.” This motivated me a little more. I moved in closer.

“What was that?”

The guy paused for a moment, then leaned forward slightly. “..get me something to drink…tell you where the money is…”

I remembered a half empty bottle of Dr. Pepper in my bag, and pulled it out. The guy coughed, drank it in one go, then whispered the name of a cemetary to me. “It’s in one of the graves,” he managed to tell me.

“Which one?” He idn’t say anything more, just waved the bottle at me. I ran down to the small stream running beside the path. The water would be filled with mud and dirt, but the guy was obviously dying anyway, so what did he care?

When I got back, Eddie was stood over the guy, who was now motionless. I ran over. He was dead.

“What did he say?” I shouted, dropping the bottle and grabbing both Eddie’s shoulders. He just stood there, smirking like a twelve year old who has just farted.

“He told me the name on the grave.”

“What is it?”

“Tell me which cemetary.”

“No way. You first.”

“No you first.”

This went on for a while, and eventually we realised that we had to get home. The next time I saw him he didn’t say anything about the guy, and, not wanting to be the first one to back down, neither did I.

Eventually the whole encounter began to fade into memory, and we started acting like friends again, but I still lie awake wondering if that money is really there. Hopefully, Eddie does too.