Susan's Sudden Suicide

The Fort Worth mint is the only place outside of Washington DC that prints money. What's really cool is one can take a tour of the facility and view the actual creation of the god that brings so much ugly filth to the world. It's a bit of a mind-bending experience watching a pallet holding 64 million dollars be whisked into a row of other pallets holding 64 million dollars and think of all the lives that could be affected by them. One can't but help believe there has to be a better way to live in this our universe.

When it comes to money, we are a jealous god. Seeing mounds of printed paper that rules our lives forces one to consider the insanity of our horrifying conspiracy of mutual blackmail to force each and every life to bow before this wooden calf. No unauthorized personnel behind the glass, please! Only the highest of priests may enter. If the arrangement of the ink is not just right, into the fire of purification it goes! On such trivial things do our lives hang. One must consider: what would happen to the world if we were no longer able to print money?

Susan had never taken this tour before but was fascinated. She believed in the power given money. She needed it to be true. Money was her shortcut in life, the secret weapon that separated her from fools who fail to understand the ways of the world. Susan had figured all the angles, never turning a blind eye. And though she knew better than to gamble on a human calculation, she could find no hole in her formula for success. With a payoff that allowed her to escape life's traps she felt the reward was certainly worth the risk: a get out of jail free card.

Part of the tour is a stop at the station of a woman who pieces back together money that has been ruined by fire or any other sort of damage. If more than fifty percent can be recreated then a replacement bill is issued. One of the most common misconceptions, the woman explains, is that burying money is a safe thing to do. It needs to be in an absolutely airtight container or it inevitably rots. Most of the time it's not recoverable. Then the thud of a fainting body was heard.

***

Susan only gave a knowing smirk anytime a friend chastised her for letting her life slip away. She didn't love her husband. She didn't pursue a career. Her life was going nowhere. "There's always tomorrow," she'd coyly reply. When asked, "But what about today?" she'd simply shrug and say that today can go rot. She was smarter than the rest having rigged the game in her favor. Let the delusional worry about today.

"Money unearned is twice as sweet as money earned." Susan knew that earning a living is a sucker's game, chains by another name. She saw how the slaves live in fear, are used and thrown away. Despite evildoers claims that hard work and honesty are rewarded there's no shortage of corrupt millionaires walking around. The further she dug for the truth the more it confirmed her suspicion of the veracity of Napoleon's quote: "The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man." But having verified this truth, to whom could she plead her case for change?

So the world could go fuck itself as she made other plans. As the currency of life slipped through her fingers, Susan laughed. One day she'd take her revenge on the raw deal of this wicked world. Unhappy marriage, wasted days, escaping into carnal pleasures - who cares? Life is but a joke. Until, of course, she found herself looking up at curious bystanders from the floor of the Fort Worth Mint. That's when the final truth hit her: her god was of no value, after all, those viciously guarded pallets down below have no end game of life.

Susan staggered to her feet, hoping the news of her illusion to be nothing more than bad dreams. She stayed in a self-imposed stupor on the ride home, barely talking, and wanting nothing to do with anyone. It was the last time she was seen alive.

The explanation lay in the hole in the far corner of the backyard where the hundreds of thousands of dollars she'd siphoned off from her marriage over the years lay in a rotting heap of future compost. Her well-planned escape had worked to perfection outside of this unforeseen fatal flaw. Money on top always looked fine but it hid the decay underneath. What little good she found was not even close to being enough to sustain her.

Susan was buried having never started her life. She'd seemed the life of the party carousing around in bars; always playing the joker. As she lived in an ever deepening state of unrealized deception, she mocked those she saw living useless and deceived lives. To many she was a hero - even to herself! But like the song says: Every form of refuge has its price. Dishonesty never escapes death. As one of her bewildered friends asked, "Why did she bury her treasure?"