viral attack/ part 6 the scam
fiction
edward w pritchard
I have decided to let Lillian sleep as I sit here fretting over our future. In sleep she is safe; worth the risk of her skipping the tonic for now that may shield her from the hiding virus for a few hours.
I am watching for the first streaks of light that heralds the coming of dawn like in Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare. The couple were that night in Shakespeare's play the young lovers and it is just after their first night together as lovers. After their bliss Romeo now must leave Juliet, his new bride. The dawn was coming any minute for the couple. They listen for a distant crowing bird. Is it the Rooster that heralds the dawn or the Nightingale. The Nightingale singing means it is just the beginning of their night together again for the couple and they get to experience their bliss over again once more. In Romeo and Juliet if that night Romeo is caught with Juliet he dies. First one then the other pretends to hear the Nightingale rather than the Rooster crow the approach of the imminent dawn and their re entry into the reality of their world.
I can't hear any roosters crowing from the eight floor of this courthouse in the this large crowded City and I have never heard a Nightingale sing. I wonder what a Nightingale's song sounds like?
Streaks of dawn are just visible far far to the East.
I think I will wake Lillian now. Soon we go to look for a a Nightingale far out Eastward, far from here.
end
Showing posts with label future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label future. Show all posts
Thursday, October 13, 2011
viral attack/ part 5 the scam
viral attack/ part 5 the scam
fiction
edward w pritchard
What a horrible dream. It seemed to go on for ever. I was only asleep for twenty five minutes.
It must be my subconscious trying to reprimand me for being asleep through the time to give Lillian the tonic water. She's still asleep. My dream was so disturbing it seems like the whole City should be awakened from the dreadful fear it caused in me. Yet Lillian is ten feet away from me sleeping calmly on the brown leather couch in this Judge's office. Down below us an entire city silently slumbers unaware of me or my problems.
I was dreaming over and over about carrying the forty bottles of tonic water when Lillian and I leave the City. When I was awake sipping cognac earlier it seemed easy to conceal and carry forty bottles of tonic water about and travel and protect a small sick child. But my dream was dreadful and terrifying. Everyone was sinister and malicious in my dream and I was rightly fearful of society about me.
I kept dreaming over and over about how much forty eight ounce bottles would exactly weigh, including the weight of the hard plastic bottles. Twenty pounds plus the bottles. It was critical in my dream world to know the exact weight of the bottles. The weight of the bottles meant something very special in my dream.
Then I was overwhelmed in my dream of how much space twenty eight ounce bottles would occupy and how I would carry the twenty ounce bottles and how I would conceal the bulky cargo.
In my dream if others found out I had the tonic water that may possibly cure or slow the progression to death of the Green Lady virus I was an easy target for others looking to steal the magic liquid.
My dream was so unsettling. How am I going to travel about with a sick child in a hostile City with police and national Guard troops searching for anyone shielding and abetting victims of the Green lady virus. What if Lillian has a relapse. What if I am not there to care for her. Who will watch over her if the virus targets me.
I have been staring out of the window worrying for fifteen minutes in this high up courthouse Judge's office where Lillian and I are temporarily camping out for the night. Tomorrow we have to leave. How will I protect a small helpless child in a hostile world.
Three fifty AM.
end
fiction
edward w pritchard
What a horrible dream. It seemed to go on for ever. I was only asleep for twenty five minutes.
It must be my subconscious trying to reprimand me for being asleep through the time to give Lillian the tonic water. She's still asleep. My dream was so disturbing it seems like the whole City should be awakened from the dreadful fear it caused in me. Yet Lillian is ten feet away from me sleeping calmly on the brown leather couch in this Judge's office. Down below us an entire city silently slumbers unaware of me or my problems.
I was dreaming over and over about carrying the forty bottles of tonic water when Lillian and I leave the City. When I was awake sipping cognac earlier it seemed easy to conceal and carry forty bottles of tonic water about and travel and protect a small sick child. But my dream was dreadful and terrifying. Everyone was sinister and malicious in my dream and I was rightly fearful of society about me.
I kept dreaming over and over about how much forty eight ounce bottles would exactly weigh, including the weight of the hard plastic bottles. Twenty pounds plus the bottles. It was critical in my dream world to know the exact weight of the bottles. The weight of the bottles meant something very special in my dream.
Then I was overwhelmed in my dream of how much space twenty eight ounce bottles would occupy and how I would carry the twenty ounce bottles and how I would conceal the bulky cargo.
In my dream if others found out I had the tonic water that may possibly cure or slow the progression to death of the Green Lady virus I was an easy target for others looking to steal the magic liquid.
My dream was so unsettling. How am I going to travel about with a sick child in a hostile City with police and national Guard troops searching for anyone shielding and abetting victims of the Green lady virus. What if Lillian has a relapse. What if I am not there to care for her. Who will watch over her if the virus targets me.
I have been staring out of the window worrying for fifteen minutes in this high up courthouse Judge's office where Lillian and I are temporarily camping out for the night. Tomorrow we have to leave. How will I protect a small helpless child in a hostile world.
Three fifty AM.
end
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
viral attack/ part 4 the scam
viral attack/ part 4 the scam
fiction
edward w pritchard
Lillian and I are living in the basement of the old courthouse. We are very comfortable and at night sometimes we take the boarded up stairs up to the new courtrooms and offices and sleep up there where it's heated and dry.
When I asked a few of my homeless buddies for help, Justin a down and out musician stole three cases of the tonic water that is supposed to inhibit the contamination of the body by the virus, known as " the green lady". It's called the green lady because of the telltale greenish foamy liquid that secretes through the skin of infected victims. Lillian, who is seven, complains sometimes about the after taste of the tonic water but remembering how sick she was she always finishes the entire eight ounce bottle. We have about forty bottles left which is about thirteen days worth. I haven't been infected yet and most of the others living here in the basement aren't likely to steal any of our remaining bottles because they think tonic water is a hoax; remembering the ads for it before for treatment of hair loss and later as a purported prostrate cancer cure.
It's very late and Lillian is sleeping for a long time. We are in a Judges private offices on the eighth floor of the new courthouse. I have a nice view of the city and it is a clear starry sky. Tomorrow I have to decide if we should move out toward the country. The rioting is bad and the national guard and police are conducting building to building searches for squatters like us. Harboring an infected victim of the green lady virus is instant death but I want to leave not because of my self but to help Lillian find a place to be safe until she is feeling well.
I guess I have decided to leave the City. I am drinking Judge Ramer's cognac and smoking a cigar I found in his desk. The poor janitor will probably get in trouble so I need to find something to leave in the Judge's office to let him know that one of us homeless types broke into his private office. It's time to move on but first another glass of Cognac and in a few minutes I'll wake Lillian for another tonic water.
end
fiction
edward w pritchard
Lillian and I are living in the basement of the old courthouse. We are very comfortable and at night sometimes we take the boarded up stairs up to the new courtrooms and offices and sleep up there where it's heated and dry.
When I asked a few of my homeless buddies for help, Justin a down and out musician stole three cases of the tonic water that is supposed to inhibit the contamination of the body by the virus, known as " the green lady". It's called the green lady because of the telltale greenish foamy liquid that secretes through the skin of infected victims. Lillian, who is seven, complains sometimes about the after taste of the tonic water but remembering how sick she was she always finishes the entire eight ounce bottle. We have about forty bottles left which is about thirteen days worth. I haven't been infected yet and most of the others living here in the basement aren't likely to steal any of our remaining bottles because they think tonic water is a hoax; remembering the ads for it before for treatment of hair loss and later as a purported prostrate cancer cure.
It's very late and Lillian is sleeping for a long time. We are in a Judges private offices on the eighth floor of the new courthouse. I have a nice view of the city and it is a clear starry sky. Tomorrow I have to decide if we should move out toward the country. The rioting is bad and the national guard and police are conducting building to building searches for squatters like us. Harboring an infected victim of the green lady virus is instant death but I want to leave not because of my self but to help Lillian find a place to be safe until she is feeling well.
I guess I have decided to leave the City. I am drinking Judge Ramer's cognac and smoking a cigar I found in his desk. The poor janitor will probably get in trouble so I need to find something to leave in the Judge's office to let him know that one of us homeless types broke into his private office. It's time to move on but first another glass of Cognac and in a few minutes I'll wake Lillian for another tonic water.
end
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
viral attack/ part 3 the scam
viral attack/ part 3 the scam
fiction
edward w pritchard
The girl is not my grand daughter but I was close to her Grand Mother once and I helped raise her Mother for two years at that time. I decided to pay for the girl's treatment at the cancer center; at least as long as my 401K lasts. Hospitals and other treatment centers won't take hospitalization insurance anymore because of the regulations imposed by our State goverment to combat spread of the virus; which is just as well for I let my health insurance lapse last year.
The staff here have earned their money. They have cleaned up Lillian, that's the girl's name, and have had her for two days on a tonic water and vitamin E treatment. The funny thing is it's the same regiment that my friend was on two years ago before he died here at this very cancer center. Still even though my friend told me just before he died the regiment here is a scam; it's worth it to me to see Lillian looking robust and feeling better.
We will be leaving tomorrow and of course Lillian is not cured of the virus but she is getting her strength back. I am worried about where we will go for there is a lot of rioting and her Mother is dead and I haven't had a proper place to stay in over a year. Actually I have been living on the streets for six months, although I still have some savings. No hotel will take Lillian because of the quarantine so it looks like we will return to the streets where hopefully my contacts can shelter us from the national guard who are detaining infected persons.
end
fiction
edward w pritchard
The girl is not my grand daughter but I was close to her Grand Mother once and I helped raise her Mother for two years at that time. I decided to pay for the girl's treatment at the cancer center; at least as long as my 401K lasts. Hospitals and other treatment centers won't take hospitalization insurance anymore because of the regulations imposed by our State goverment to combat spread of the virus; which is just as well for I let my health insurance lapse last year.
The staff here have earned their money. They have cleaned up Lillian, that's the girl's name, and have had her for two days on a tonic water and vitamin E treatment. The funny thing is it's the same regiment that my friend was on two years ago before he died here at this very cancer center. Still even though my friend told me just before he died the regiment here is a scam; it's worth it to me to see Lillian looking robust and feeling better.
We will be leaving tomorrow and of course Lillian is not cured of the virus but she is getting her strength back. I am worried about where we will go for there is a lot of rioting and her Mother is dead and I haven't had a proper place to stay in over a year. Actually I have been living on the streets for six months, although I still have some savings. No hotel will take Lillian because of the quarantine so it looks like we will return to the streets where hopefully my contacts can shelter us from the national guard who are detaining infected persons.
end
viral attack/ part 2 the scam
viral attack/ part 2 the scam
fiction
edward w pritchard
The mayor has declared martial law because of the virus and the news playing on the TV at the cancer clinic where my friend died last year said that the national guard had been called in and were shooting contagious people in the area of the hospital.
end part 2
fiction
edward w pritchard
The mayor has declared martial law because of the virus and the news playing on the TV at the cancer clinic where my friend died last year said that the national guard had been called in and were shooting contagious people in the area of the hospital.
end part 2
viral attack/ part 1 the scam
viral attack/ part 1 the scam
fiction
edward w pritchard
I decided to take the girl up town to the cancer clinic where my friend had died last year to try to get her some treatment. It was out of the question to attempt admission for her to the hospital because the virus was spreading fast through her neighborhood and many desperate people lined the area of the hospital. Because of the quarantine the police had been called in to control the crowds.
We took the bus. The bus driver looked away when we entered pretending not to see how sick and terrified the girl looked. The other passengers weren't so kind. The thick oily mucous on the girl's body smelled badly and the greenish foam was unsettling to espy. The shaking girl sobbed wanting her Doctor. Near the cancer clinic but not quite there we got off the bus and I carried trembling child the last few blocks to escape the hostility of the crowded bus.
fiction
edward w pritchard
I decided to take the girl up town to the cancer clinic where my friend had died last year to try to get her some treatment. It was out of the question to attempt admission for her to the hospital because the virus was spreading fast through her neighborhood and many desperate people lined the area of the hospital. Because of the quarantine the police had been called in to control the crowds.
We took the bus. The bus driver looked away when we entered pretending not to see how sick and terrified the girl looked. The other passengers weren't so kind. The thick oily mucous on the girl's body smelled badly and the greenish foam was unsettling to espy. The shaking girl sobbed wanting her Doctor. Near the cancer clinic but not quite there we got off the bus and I carried trembling child the last few blocks to escape the hostility of the crowded bus.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Everybody is always somewhere else
Everybody is always somewhere else
fiction
edward w pritchard
Everybody is always somewhere else. No one just wants to be here, here now, in this place. No one can stay still, no one can be happy with the here and now.
I wish I knew where they were going. I would like to go along. Sometimes it's quiet here without anyone. Lonely too sometimes. I have to go, not sure where. I'll know it when I get there. I'll have to hurry, I might be late in arriving.
fiction
edward w pritchard
Everybody is always somewhere else. No one just wants to be here, here now, in this place. No one can stay still, no one can be happy with the here and now.
I wish I knew where they were going. I would like to go along. Sometimes it's quiet here without anyone. Lonely too sometimes. I have to go, not sure where. I'll know it when I get there. I'll have to hurry, I might be late in arriving.
Friday, July 23, 2010
retirement job, America circa 2025
retirement job, America circa 2025
fiction
edward w pritchard
I was extremely lucky to get the job with the City of Barberton when I was sixty eight years old over at the train station along the canal and the River. I sleep in a small train observation station along the tracks about ten by ten feet square. I am luckier than most for after the hyper inflation of 2018 wiped out pensions and savings most of us are happy with a roof over our heads and any source of income is welcome for the young in America do not much condone the elderly working.
I monitor the trains as they run west toward California carrying rocks and other hard commodities like pieces of cement, slag and anythings that can be converted to fuel in China. China is literally buying the complete terrain of America. Various types of rocks are stripped off the American terrains put on trains and the rumble across America to be shipped to China to be manufactured into alternate fuel sources; for oil is now scarce. I said I monitor trains but actually my main job is to watch the pieces of stone and rock that line the sides along the railroad track. They are very valuable and many people are tempted to steal them. They are needed to cushion the vibration of the heavy trains, as no other source is available that works as well as a cushion, but they are valuable for export , one small rock is worth ten dollars, a small fortune to the poor in these difficult times. To guard the rocks along the track I carry a rifle and am sad to report I have killed at least twenty people in the last year alone many women and some young teenage children. I sympathize with their poverty and misery but since I wish to live I must do my job to survive.
Last Thursday I was walking at the extreme Southern edge of my territory in a woody area along the River and my back was to a fence that extended in front of and behind me for about a half mile. It is out along the old lime and molybdenum pits formerly kept by a large Barberton industrial chemical concern. About fifty thousands deer were coming down the hill, eastward from near the high tension towers jumping the fence mostly, although it was soon torn down, and heading dead East. I was not alarmed by the large herds of animals because sometimes mass groups of animals were rounded up, driven to a slaughter station and then shipped to China or India. Myriad other kinds of animals in very great numbers and herds were following the deer, including rabbits, woodchucks, dogs, and numerous other kinds of animals native to America and not yet extinct. Two extremely large military helicopters of the G class, the green monsters, were driving the animals presumably to the stations south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be slaughtered and shipped to China and India for food.
The first helicopter when it saw me tasered me with a DNA scan and I collapsed to the ground. Luckily I guess, my DNA, was clean because they did not kill me, although the second helicopter circled once. They flew off and let me alone and I wasn't mortally injured by the helicopters or by the movement of the animals.
Later, I got a small workers compensation award for the DNA taser scan, with an apology, since I work for the railroad, a quasi government agency. With the Workers comp ward of $750 I am going to buy a battery powered DVD player so I can watch old television shows in my hut when off duty.
The apology of sorts I got from the helicopter pilots and crew that tasered was some fresh possum meat from the Pittsburgh slaughter plant that they commandeered before it was shipped off to the Orient. The helicopter crews and I both are civil service, section 96, supplying hard goods to China and I heard they felt bad about DNA tasering one of their own, for it is a very painful process.
end
fiction
edward w pritchard
I was extremely lucky to get the job with the City of Barberton when I was sixty eight years old over at the train station along the canal and the River. I sleep in a small train observation station along the tracks about ten by ten feet square. I am luckier than most for after the hyper inflation of 2018 wiped out pensions and savings most of us are happy with a roof over our heads and any source of income is welcome for the young in America do not much condone the elderly working.
I monitor the trains as they run west toward California carrying rocks and other hard commodities like pieces of cement, slag and anythings that can be converted to fuel in China. China is literally buying the complete terrain of America. Various types of rocks are stripped off the American terrains put on trains and the rumble across America to be shipped to China to be manufactured into alternate fuel sources; for oil is now scarce. I said I monitor trains but actually my main job is to watch the pieces of stone and rock that line the sides along the railroad track. They are very valuable and many people are tempted to steal them. They are needed to cushion the vibration of the heavy trains, as no other source is available that works as well as a cushion, but they are valuable for export , one small rock is worth ten dollars, a small fortune to the poor in these difficult times. To guard the rocks along the track I carry a rifle and am sad to report I have killed at least twenty people in the last year alone many women and some young teenage children. I sympathize with their poverty and misery but since I wish to live I must do my job to survive.
Last Thursday I was walking at the extreme Southern edge of my territory in a woody area along the River and my back was to a fence that extended in front of and behind me for about a half mile. It is out along the old lime and molybdenum pits formerly kept by a large Barberton industrial chemical concern. About fifty thousands deer were coming down the hill, eastward from near the high tension towers jumping the fence mostly, although it was soon torn down, and heading dead East. I was not alarmed by the large herds of animals because sometimes mass groups of animals were rounded up, driven to a slaughter station and then shipped to China or India. Myriad other kinds of animals in very great numbers and herds were following the deer, including rabbits, woodchucks, dogs, and numerous other kinds of animals native to America and not yet extinct. Two extremely large military helicopters of the G class, the green monsters, were driving the animals presumably to the stations south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be slaughtered and shipped to China and India for food.
The first helicopter when it saw me tasered me with a DNA scan and I collapsed to the ground. Luckily I guess, my DNA, was clean because they did not kill me, although the second helicopter circled once. They flew off and let me alone and I wasn't mortally injured by the helicopters or by the movement of the animals.
Later, I got a small workers compensation award for the DNA taser scan, with an apology, since I work for the railroad, a quasi government agency. With the Workers comp ward of $750 I am going to buy a battery powered DVD player so I can watch old television shows in my hut when off duty.
The apology of sorts I got from the helicopter pilots and crew that tasered was some fresh possum meat from the Pittsburgh slaughter plant that they commandeered before it was shipped off to the Orient. The helicopter crews and I both are civil service, section 96, supplying hard goods to China and I heard they felt bad about DNA tasering one of their own, for it is a very painful process.
end
Monday, April 19, 2010
the sensitive Casandra
the sensitive Casandra
fiction
edward w pritchard
Sometimes the World's not benevolent.
It's so easy in a television news story. A righteous cause, caring friends, getting out the word, the ball gets rolling, the final sound byte of everyone happily eating cake on TV. Problem solved. When our friend got cancer without health insurance it didn't work like a TV story for us.
Our friend Jo, a girl, was 14 had cancer and there was no health insurance so all of us at the ninth grade sold pins with a puzzle piece on it and a bow to help raise money. Then we washed cars and we had a ravioli dinner and then we went to the suburban newspaper and several of our father's places of employment. After a couple of months we had by herculean effort raise about $800 dollars and we decided to try a new strategy.
We went to the community bank for a loan. We took the story about our fund raising and our friend's plight to the Community Bank to the President, Mr. Ray who had spoke to us in the business class in our ninth grade social studies class. He was very helpful, taught us a lot, and the Bank donated $50 and so did he, donate another $50, from his own money. We found out the World was not always benevolent. Not indifferent just preoccupied with other pressing concerns. We didn't get our loan.
Mr. Ray, the Bank President when we pressed and pressed him refereed us to Mrs. Brown. She was the only black lady in our Suburban neighborhood. She lived in a large brick house with an expensive fence around it. She worked on her gardens a lot. Her husband was dead and she didn't leave her house much. When we were in grade school and selling anything at school we would race to her house to get there first for she would always buy candy or Christmas cards or pins made of puzzle pieces and ribbon to raise money for a friend with cancer. She also would pay $15 dollars to have you shovel the snow with her snow shovel off her sidewalk every time it snowed. Completion was fierce every time it snowed when we ran to her house to ask to shovel the snow.
I went to see Mrs. Brown. I am Sheri, and I took Ossie and Lancey and our friend with the cancer is Jo, a girl but she didn't go, too sick. Mrs. Brown lives alone and listened to us and gave us some pineapple juice to drink. She gave us $25 for Jo. Lancy blurted out about the stock market. " We were desperate and the world isn't benevolent and we had to help Jo to help fight the cancer which was very expensive" Please help us I said.
Mrs. Brown said no. The stock market was too risky and we didn't understand.
We brought Jo over with her shaved head and then Mrs. Brown was sad but asked us to bring her a Wall Street Journal every morning. She would to have start reading it again if she was going to help us. Everyday we raced to her house from Feeman's drug store with a Wall Street Journal, one can of Pepsi for her, her favorite, from us and a different kind of candy bar, to her again, from who ever of us was bringing her the paper.
She eventually picked an IPO stock. It was 1997 and stocks were flying, it said in the Wall Street Journal. Jo's family needed the money for the cancer treatments.
We worked on Mrs. Brown's elaborate garden that Spring and she followed that stock. We went to the store for her and did errands for her for Mrs. Brown didn't get out of the house much normally.
It took about ten weeks but somehow Mrs. Brown turned $1100 dollars into 18,400 after commissions and taxes in the NASDAQ stock market. My Dad said it couldn't happen and after it did he said it was miraculous.
Jo's doing better with the cancer. Its in remission and its a year since we went to Mrs. Brown to help us.
Her nephew came to see me, I am Sheri and I am the leader of our group who wanted to raise money for our friend Jo with cancer. We were successful but now Mrs. Brown isn't gardening anymore. She can't. She can hardly leave the house, even with her nephew's help. Her nephew told me. She could study the stock market in the Wall Street Journal and was very good at picking stocks. If the market was going up, in a bull phase she was usually very successful at picking stocks. The bad part was studying all the inter relationships of the world and how they effected stock prices depressed her badly said her nephew. It was very bad for her and she had been told by her Doctor's not to do it. Mrs. Brown understood the inter relationships between events but it depressed her to study them and try to peer into the future, a necessary task to make money with the stock market.
Mrs. Brown can't garden anymore, at least not this year. Her nephew has asked us not to try to do the gardening now. The garden's not doing too well. The high fence is still around the large brick house and Mrs. Brown sits in the rocking chair on the screened in porch a lot, I can see her when I ride by on my bike. She nods I think, its hard to tell with the rocking. I am sorry I asked her but I didn't know and she didn't tell us exactly.
Jo is in remission now but Mrs. Brown is not doing well, at least not now.
The world's not benevolent sometimes.
End
fiction
edward w pritchard
Sometimes the World's not benevolent.
It's so easy in a television news story. A righteous cause, caring friends, getting out the word, the ball gets rolling, the final sound byte of everyone happily eating cake on TV. Problem solved. When our friend got cancer without health insurance it didn't work like a TV story for us.
Our friend Jo, a girl, was 14 had cancer and there was no health insurance so all of us at the ninth grade sold pins with a puzzle piece on it and a bow to help raise money. Then we washed cars and we had a ravioli dinner and then we went to the suburban newspaper and several of our father's places of employment. After a couple of months we had by herculean effort raise about $800 dollars and we decided to try a new strategy.
We went to the community bank for a loan. We took the story about our fund raising and our friend's plight to the Community Bank to the President, Mr. Ray who had spoke to us in the business class in our ninth grade social studies class. He was very helpful, taught us a lot, and the Bank donated $50 and so did he, donate another $50, from his own money. We found out the World was not always benevolent. Not indifferent just preoccupied with other pressing concerns. We didn't get our loan.
Mr. Ray, the Bank President when we pressed and pressed him refereed us to Mrs. Brown. She was the only black lady in our Suburban neighborhood. She lived in a large brick house with an expensive fence around it. She worked on her gardens a lot. Her husband was dead and she didn't leave her house much. When we were in grade school and selling anything at school we would race to her house to get there first for she would always buy candy or Christmas cards or pins made of puzzle pieces and ribbon to raise money for a friend with cancer. She also would pay $15 dollars to have you shovel the snow with her snow shovel off her sidewalk every time it snowed. Completion was fierce every time it snowed when we ran to her house to ask to shovel the snow.
I went to see Mrs. Brown. I am Sheri, and I took Ossie and Lancey and our friend with the cancer is Jo, a girl but she didn't go, too sick. Mrs. Brown lives alone and listened to us and gave us some pineapple juice to drink. She gave us $25 for Jo. Lancy blurted out about the stock market. " We were desperate and the world isn't benevolent and we had to help Jo to help fight the cancer which was very expensive" Please help us I said.
Mrs. Brown said no. The stock market was too risky and we didn't understand.
We brought Jo over with her shaved head and then Mrs. Brown was sad but asked us to bring her a Wall Street Journal every morning. She would to have start reading it again if she was going to help us. Everyday we raced to her house from Feeman's drug store with a Wall Street Journal, one can of Pepsi for her, her favorite, from us and a different kind of candy bar, to her again, from who ever of us was bringing her the paper.
She eventually picked an IPO stock. It was 1997 and stocks were flying, it said in the Wall Street Journal. Jo's family needed the money for the cancer treatments.
We worked on Mrs. Brown's elaborate garden that Spring and she followed that stock. We went to the store for her and did errands for her for Mrs. Brown didn't get out of the house much normally.
It took about ten weeks but somehow Mrs. Brown turned $1100 dollars into 18,400 after commissions and taxes in the NASDAQ stock market. My Dad said it couldn't happen and after it did he said it was miraculous.
Jo's doing better with the cancer. Its in remission and its a year since we went to Mrs. Brown to help us.
Her nephew came to see me, I am Sheri and I am the leader of our group who wanted to raise money for our friend Jo with cancer. We were successful but now Mrs. Brown isn't gardening anymore. She can't. She can hardly leave the house, even with her nephew's help. Her nephew told me. She could study the stock market in the Wall Street Journal and was very good at picking stocks. If the market was going up, in a bull phase she was usually very successful at picking stocks. The bad part was studying all the inter relationships of the world and how they effected stock prices depressed her badly said her nephew. It was very bad for her and she had been told by her Doctor's not to do it. Mrs. Brown understood the inter relationships between events but it depressed her to study them and try to peer into the future, a necessary task to make money with the stock market.
Mrs. Brown can't garden anymore, at least not this year. Her nephew has asked us not to try to do the gardening now. The garden's not doing too well. The high fence is still around the large brick house and Mrs. Brown sits in the rocking chair on the screened in porch a lot, I can see her when I ride by on my bike. She nods I think, its hard to tell with the rocking. I am sorry I asked her but I didn't know and she didn't tell us exactly.
Jo is in remission now but Mrs. Brown is not doing well, at least not now.
The world's not benevolent sometimes.
End
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
interest only
interest only
fiction
edward w pritchard
Red's life depended on the benevolence of his bank for he was on interest only.
He owed 853,222 on the business loans combined on his drive thru and the restaurant.
His first mortgage was 271,475 on the house out in the Lakes. The equity loan was another 35,124 but was actually unsecured for he was underwater on that for a long time.
Two credit cards were maxed out at with combined balances of 24,003
Car loans on the two cars were 34,886
there was however 2,500 in the daughter's college fund
The restaurant was doing fine and the work-out people from the big bank hadn't called in several months. The community bank was having troubles of their own.
His wife was still teaching but that school system was cutting back
somewhere a 22 year old is graduating from college that will start working at the big bank and in about 18 months into the current business cycle will call Red and over the course of three phone calls and a harsh letter from an out of town attorney will rock Red's world by wanting the principal on the loans
red used to follow the stock market every day but hasn't opened his 401K statement in a long time and him and his friends don't discuss the dow anymore. For all of them are now on interest only.
red likes to stop on the way to work and buy a few lottery tickets for he is now on interest only, expediency keeps him going
end
fiction
edward w pritchard
Red's life depended on the benevolence of his bank for he was on interest only.
He owed 853,222 on the business loans combined on his drive thru and the restaurant.
His first mortgage was 271,475 on the house out in the Lakes. The equity loan was another 35,124 but was actually unsecured for he was underwater on that for a long time.
Two credit cards were maxed out at with combined balances of 24,003
Car loans on the two cars were 34,886
there was however 2,500 in the daughter's college fund
The restaurant was doing fine and the work-out people from the big bank hadn't called in several months. The community bank was having troubles of their own.
His wife was still teaching but that school system was cutting back
somewhere a 22 year old is graduating from college that will start working at the big bank and in about 18 months into the current business cycle will call Red and over the course of three phone calls and a harsh letter from an out of town attorney will rock Red's world by wanting the principal on the loans
red used to follow the stock market every day but hasn't opened his 401K statement in a long time and him and his friends don't discuss the dow anymore. For all of them are now on interest only.
red likes to stop on the way to work and buy a few lottery tickets for he is now on interest only, expediency keeps him going
end
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