Breathe

You never know how hard it is to breathe until every breath you take is charged for. When the intakes of air change from giving you life to weighing upon your mind and body, becoming just another expense to be paid, your mind... changes. Nobody thinks about every single intake of breath, nor should they. It’s as natural as, well, breathing. Oxygen is the giver of life, and without it, none of us could grace the world of the living. I never thought about breathing myself. I took it for granted, just as I did everything else that I now have lost. I thought that I was given the sweet, sumptuous air that would sustain me and focused my mind upon other aspects of life, things that I wish I had corrected when I had the chance.

  I have always been a frugal man. As a child, I would save every penny of my allowance in a porcelain piggy bank hidden in a corner of my room, savoring the clinking sound as the coins dropped to the bottom, slowly filling up both the jar and my mind. I did not dream of riches, oh no, nor did I wish to buy some fancy new fad that was sweeping the nation. Merely having the money made me happy, and I fulfilled my ambitions simply by watching my pile grow and grow with every weekly chore. As I grew, the habit did as well. My first job was at an ice cream parlor. I was just beginning to venture out of the world of adolescence, and, at 16, the busiest place in the neighborhood was the best way to start. Every day, sordid, dimwitted people would amble in and out of the shop, choosing to eat the horrid, sugar filled atrocities that we served under the mask of a sweet treat. I could hardly stand it, but, as the person working the cashier, I was entitled to the lion's share of the tip jar. The clink of those coins were the only thing that sustained my sanity. I detested their idiotic smiles every time they passed by the register, wishing me a “good day, neighbor” or “see you next time, buddy". It sickened me. But I tolerated it, looking past their dull eyes and into the glistening jar now full of cold, pressed metal.

  Eventually, I got out of that Hell-scape that masqueraded as an ice cream shop, leaving to pursue my “bright future”, as everyone said. Despite what I have told you, I am not antisocial, nor do I detest people. On the contrary, I think that human beings, as a whole, are wonderful. It is simply that I detest pleasantries and social interaction that serve only to fulfill societal norms. I am disgusted by the lengths that strangers will go to hide their true emotions, instead choosing to maintain appearances. Perhaps that is why money attracted me. Money is unchangeable, cold, hard, and inhuman. It may be an entirely man-made construct, but it is nothing like the wretched idealization that we call our society. Money is there for one purpose, and one purpose only: to count the value of what we hold dear. I would be scorned should I say this out loud, but money is the truest form of honesty. Cash and currency do not lie, or at least the true kind doesn’t. I don’t care for barter systems or anything else that radicals seem to think will improve our society.

  You may think me a miser, Ebeneezer Scrooge even, but, deep in your heart, you know that I am right. Humans and their emotions are messy and unpredictable. Money is not. It will be no surprise to you that after graduating from college I became a banker. After all, what other profession would place me in such direct contact with money? I would come home every day to a loving wife and two children after spending long, long days at work counting it. The American dream, you might even say. I had everything and wanted nothing more than to maintain this perfect fantasy that I had so carefully crafted for myself. Of course, it did help that, after my parents' untimely death, I inherited their fortune. Call it luck, good or bad, but no one saw the train coming that ended their lives so abruptly. Needless to say, I had all the money that I could ever need. My eldest daughter went to the finest school in the country, a place reserved only for the elite and powerful. I bought her way in, of course. My wife owned the finest jewels, things that duchesses and queens could only dream of. My son was the talk of the town, ringing in everybody’s praise with his suave manners, aided by the deluxe sports car that he received upon his 16th birthday. I had it all, and my life was perfect for forty-seven years.

   Nobody could’ve seen it coming and, frankly, I still doubt whether my recollections are true or merely a breakdown of my fevered mind. A week after my 47th birthday, my wife fell ill. She was healthy, and had never shown any signs of the rare, genetic disease that had apparently bypassed both her mother and grandmother. She was beautiful, kind, strong, and gone. My children returned for the funeral, of course, but left soon after. They were adults now and had their own lives, leaving me alone with my money. Oh, the money.

You see, as wealthy as I was, my wife was ten times that. Her family had owned a large number of estates, and, after her passing, it all defaulted to me, her husband. I was swimming in money, more figures than one could ever think to count. It was in checking accounts and wads of cash, drawers of jewelry and swathes of land. I was filthy rich. The little boy in me, the one who eagerly awaited the small coins allotted to him, cried out with joy, watching all of this money suddenly appear. My children need never worry for their futures again. Their mother had made sure of that. The first night that I went to bed after all of her affairs had been dealt with, and the children had left to go their separate ways, was the first night that I had ever truly felt the weight of an empty house.

  The money called to me, filling the void that two children and a loving wife once had. As every second ticked by, it became heavier, my riches swarming towards me in a mass of inexplicable wealth and sadness. I had all that I had ever truly wanted, and yet it was strangling

me. That was the first night that I did not sleep. It was not the last. The next two weeks were filled with counting money. In previous years, that job had ceased as soon as I left the bank to return home. After, though, it never stopped. I went through life in a daze, running from one dreary, wealth filled place to another, then withdrawing to an empty bed. I did not sleep, as the money, the weight of a dead wife, and a life spent dealing in wealth pressed down on my chest. Do you know what it feels like to be crushed? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. It is an interesting feeling, having the air pushed out of your lungs when it should be sucked in. Every breath became my last one, and I had no power to stop it. This has been my life for the past month. I cannot sleep, and my waking world is muddled. The only time I feel peace is the instant that I lay in bed, knowing that the enormous weight of my riches will soon crush me. I cannot breathe.

Coroners note: Mr. Richardson died two days after this letter was written. It was found on his nightstand table, and was, at first, treated as a suicide note. Upon further inspection, Mr. Richardson appeared to have died from two collapsed lungs, and his death was ruled a natural occurrence. Mr. Richardson’s children have been notified about his passing. The only curious thing about his death was that the entirety of his wealth has gone missing. Police are investigating the theft, but it, all of it, seems to have vanished into thin air. The only money that was found was a gold coin, seemingly placed in the center of Mr. Richardson‘s mouth.