Today's #flashfiction A Man And His Gold

“Please leave a message after the tone.”

Ghostbusters* #quote

I went to Bookman's again today. Got an old game called Rayman there, on the inside of the box it said “Rayman 2, Coming 1999!” Wasn't that right before the end of the world when the Y2K bug destroyed us all? Anyway onto the flash fiction!

A Man And His Gold

          Felix of the gold rush found a gold mine with his two partners. And he killed his partners to make every drop of the fortune his own. Felix loved the idea of all that wealth. A week later, a few miles from the mine where he set up his camp, ruthless bandits killed him in his sleep and took his supplies. But Felix did not get to leave the mine.

         His ghost remained in that hole in the ground. He looked greedily at those little veins of yellow on the walls and all the signs he saw of gold while living and more while dead. As a spirit Felix even learned to travel through the stone walls of the mines and started to see the gold inside. He couldn't leave the mine, and it remained undiscovered by anyone else, so his only company was “his” gold and any cave animals around. From his loneliness he spoke to the cave animals about his vast wealth and how when he got out of the mine somehow all the wonderful things he would spend the money on. For over one hundred years this is how the murderer's undead life went.

         Then he heard loud noises. Noises of our modern era. Explosions, drilling, voices, vehicles. He went to the edge of the cave where he could see outside. When he wasn't looking at his gold he would enjoy the view from the little opening of the cave like a window. But now the opening was much larger, blown open. Many people were there. All with tools. Tools Felix recognized and many he didn't but one thing was for certain...he could tell they were miners. They began entering his home.

        He screamed at them and clawed at them as they entered. But they couldn't hear his voice and his ghost hands merely went straight through them. And the miners started mining. Felix screamed as he saw his gold being taken away. Straight from his mine. He found it. He killed for it. It should be his. That's what Felix believed. But whatever the ghost thought didn't matter. The miners just drilled, dug or whatever made sense at the time and slowly pulled bits of gold from the mine. All while the ghost still screamed at them or sobbed tears that would vanish as soon as they dropped from his ethereal body.

         The miners also scared the cave animals away. So all that remained was a deep hole in the ground with a murderous ghost in it. With nothing but loneliness by his side, Felix stared out the exit of the cave and looked at the Sun. Because the Sun was the only gold he had left to look at. At night the murderer simply cried.