Imagine, one evening, you are surprised to discover that you have not spent the money you made that day.

For lunch, you proceed to a renowned restaurant with a crowd of people you invite along the way. Your party dines on rare delicacies and the finest wines, after all, the expense should be no obstacle to your enjoyment of their acquaintance. Having paid the bill, adding a substantial tip for the Maître d’, you bid those new-found friends farewell and check your bank accounts on your smartphone. You discover that your balance has not decreased at all. It has risen by a huge amount.

You are dismayed but decide that the solution to your predicament is to plumb the deepest depths of your extravagance. That afternoon, you buy a house with gardens and stables for some horses you have no interest in owning but you buy some anyway. You buy a fast car and one for your latest companion. But no sooner have you parted with the cash than you find your money has multiplied through these purchases.

Now you are consumed by a kind of belligerent compulsion to be rid of your cash. Boldly, you set off travelling and at every port of call you build a hoard of treasure in the hold. You pour out money with both hands to other demented vagrants along the way. Place bets in casinos with no hope of winning. You never dare to open your letters because you know they will all say the same thing: your deposits in I don’t know how many banks around the world are growing with increasing speed.

You rant and you wail as the mania swells into insanity. In a frenzy, you throw around stacks of this trash you have done nothing to earn and yet, the more you discard, the more you consume and the more your smiling lips turn to a snarl, your cash continues to amass. As if it has a mind of its own. As if you are no longer its master.

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Picture: Insanity (The Ancient Mariner) by Rod McRiven
References: Halldór Laxness  The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Talor Coleridge

© Rod McRiven 2024