Money added a beautiful color to the flames of books.
Fools' Gold
The old professor spent his life buying, reading, and teaching books. He tried to instill in his children the love for literature, but instead he increasingly grew apart from them. Even though the old professor resisted having to choose between being a great scholar and being a great father, time chose for him.
The old professor had inadvertently spent more money and time on books than on his own children. To compensate for that, he designed an elaborate plan to leave his children some hidden treasure by the time he was gone. He was fan of bookmarks as much as he was fan of books. Thus, he decided to put one-hundred bill notes in every book he owned and which he planned to bequeath to his children.
By conservative estimates, the old professor owned more than five thousand books, so he figured his kids would be gladly surprised when they discovered the hidden treasure inside the books they resented so much. Unfortunately, the old professor was not a specialist in economic sciences, and even though he had a good grasp of history, he always tried to remain optimistic about the future of his own country.
He never imagined, not even in his worst nightmares, that the whale he thought he was leaving his children from which they would be feeding for years to come, would just become a bag of sardine bones.
When the old professor died, two massive devaluations had turned his money to dust. After the reading of his will, his children checked every book and piled up the thousands of now-useless 100 Bolivares notes. Then, to honor their father’s naiveté, they organized the biggest bonfire their town had ever seen. Money added a beautiful color to the flames of books.
Thanks for your reading
This was my entry to @mariannewest and @latino.romano’s 5-Minute Daily Freewrite: Friday Prompt: BOOKMARK. You can see the details here.
Make sure you visit the Freewrite House!!!
