Fate

Once, nineteen hundred and ninety-eight years after the birth of a man who said he was God and after conquering death, flew into heaven, I referred a friend to Seafirst Bank. The people at the bank gave me a savings bond in appreciation. A fifty dollar savings bond which until the far distant and futuristic August 2005, was a worthless slip of paper.

As an eighteen year old bus boy, I’d day-dream about toys with fifty dollar price tags, cursing the years ahead of me. Slowly at first, but accelerating, the years have washed by and I’d forgotten all about that bus boy and his saving bond fantasies, forgotten about that historical date.

Recently, I’ve been broke and have learned that poverty isn’t romantic unless you are rich.

I’ve been wandering through desert streets--dusty and sun chapped, nearly naked from poverty. I collapsed in the dirt of an old mining town. “Matt, Matt.” A stately voice called. “Use the force Matt. Go to Degaba.”

“Ben!” but he was gone.

“Ben, Bon…Beno,” I repeated in that almost inaudible whispering voice one uses when solving puzzles. Of course Matt, the bond! The savings bond!

The bond, apparently, had a will of it’s own calling to me not in August 2005 when I was living like an obese feline, but now, in March of a different year, when my urine stained potato sack wardrobe was nearly obscenely illegal.

I walked in to Bank of America. Seafirst bank doesn’t even exist in this future. I approached a strikingly beautiful man in a polished suit, inquiring him about cashing a bond. He directed me to follow him to his office, or umm, cubicle, where he pushed buttons on his keyboard in a way that made no sense at all to me. Hitting those F-keys and other buttons that I myself, being a writer not a banker, have never hit.

“Mr. Matt,”

“Please sir, call me Doctor,” I interrupted.

“Doctor, there seems to be a problem with the reference number on this bond. Please, I’ll be right back.”

“Make it so,” I said in a tone that started out commanding and finished on a note of panic as I noticed a blob of ketchup on my potato sack. I’d eaten ketchup packets from the cafeteria before my visit to the bank but I dare not let the men at the bank know that.

I was left alone in the plexi-glass cubicle when I felt two deliciously soft milky hands groping at my chest and neck and hair. I turned to see a blonde woman in a red spaghetti strap dress. Her lips were huge.

Matt, open your eyes. God has a plan for you. You sitting in this chair, in this cubicle, in this bank, in this city, in this year…it is the will of God. Look around, the answers are all around you, Matt. This is part of the Divine plan. Oh, matt, your so sexy, you should be a powerful banker….

The pretty man walked back in and I found myself hugging myself, my potato sack hanging off one shoulder.

“Uh, Doctor?”

I’d not be made a fool!

“Here you are Doctor Matt, two twenties and a ten. Good day to you sir.”

And so the story of the bond comes to a close. The words of the woman in red resonate in my mind. Things put in action today lead to unexpected places in the future and that life is full of such paths and mysteries. The story of an eighteen year old kid with a savings bond ends in a cubicle seven years later, in a city the boy never dreamed of living.