Money
By Simon Barget
- 175 reads
In a town not too far from this one, you may have been there you might not, they have a whole other way of living. When you want to come by something, like bread or a pen, or some wood for your fire, or a blanket, or a new light bulb, or some medical treatment, or you need your cupboard fixed and you don’t know what from where with a mallet, or say you want to go and learn a new language, or to study music, take courses in violin, or you want to take a trip somewhere far away, or even not so far, or say you need to have your tire checked because it seems like it’s losing some pressure, well in this town you need to have what they call money.
And no one cares where you got it or how, the only way they’re going to do something for you is if you give it them in return. And when that person wants something in turn they go and show them this money, they give it to that person, and so round and round it goes. And because everyone believes that the next person will take money and money bar none, they want to get money themselves, and then you have people who just try to make more, more of this money, just so that they can be sure that they can get whatever they want from the next person no matter who that person is, and no matter what kind of parasite they might be.
I could show you what this money looks like if you want. It looks like a paper or a card and it has fancy pictures and numbers with promises to pay the bearer, but sometimes this money isn’t even paper and it’s just a number that you can point to and say, hey, I’ve got that amount of money, so I’m good for it.
Some folk will even talk to get more, to get you to give them this money. Just say stuff or write, and with the mere power of persuasion they can get what they wanted.
The people go round their business much like we do. They go out and come home. They talk on the street and they drive their cars and they ride their bicycles, and they laugh and they grieve and grow old, and their children are schooled and then people fall ill or they don’t, and a life is like a life here except for this money.
And if you try to go into a store and just take something from the shelf with the best will in the world, even if you have the kindest heart they don’t see it, they don’t see your heart and will just want for your money. Even if your eyes shine as clear as pearls and the iris clean and blue and your expression so pure and good that you’re a force for mankind and for every man you are in favour and you harbour no ill-will, never have done, even if you look a man straight in the eye with love without the slightest hint of envy, malice, regret, resentment there is no way in hell you are walking out of that store with those goods unless you’ve got geld. Which is another of the many words these people have for money.
Because in this town, and it’s not too far from here, in this town, people don’t read your heart, they don’t even sense it, they couldn’t care less what’s in it, what’s emanated because they’d rather have money.
And you can go into any place in this town, any place of business, any service, any funeral director or zoo, any theme park and they’ll all tell you the same, they’ll ask you for your money, and if you haven’t got none, then you’ll walk away empty-handed. No matter how kind-hearted, no matter what you did for the sick. Hell you could even be King.
Which set me to thinking. That if the people want to come here, if they ever come here demanding something with their money, I’m not going to obey them. If they come here with their demands and their clamours, I shall not give them a thing, because here we have our rules, and here your money’s no good, you can’t buy us with your paper, and I will look at that man, I will feel into that woman and I will treat him just like I treat you and all the people here, if they have good in their heart then I will abide by the universal law because here – and if you’re from there reading this now -- it isn’t even giving or taking, it’s an exchange and I shall be as pleased to give you my heart, my time and my heart, as you should be to receive it, but if you bypass the heart, well then there’s no saving you.
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Comments
a kind heart goes a long way,
a kind heart goes a long way, but it doesn't pay the bills.
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