The Farmer's Treasure

Sure, the old farmer was nothing but kind to me, but I needed his treasure. It was his fault, yes! His fault for showing it to me.

My first sight of it stole my breath away. Little glass bottle. Cork stopper. Inside, this shimmering silver thing that moved like it was alive.

The old man grinned at me. “What do you think, boy?”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Karma,” he said simply.

I begged the farmer to tell me where he had found it, but he tucked the bottle into his pocket and went back to making dinner.

So I followed him the next day. It wasn’t hard. The old fool had let me, a complete stranger, stay in his guest room overnight! When I saw him trudging toward his fields at dawn, a shovel over his shoulder, I shrugged on a borrowed jacket and slipped after him.

He stopped in a seemingly empty field. He looked around, but I had cleverly hidden myself behind a tree! He began to dig.

An hour later, he finally tossed the shovel aside and knelt to reach into the hole he had dug. When he straightened again, his arms were full of what I could only describe as liquid moonlight–shifting, spilling streams of silver that scattered like fog upon touching the ground.

The farmer chuckled to himself. “A good harvest.”

A harvest, Mona! He was growing karma like fucking potatoes! A crop that valuable–I needed to have it for myself.

I crept up behind him, grabbing the shovel he had discarded. I think he sensed me at the last second because he half-turned, just enough that my first blow caught him across the face. His cheekbone shattered with a wet crunch, and he crumpled to the ground.

I descended on him like a god of death! I drove the metal shovel blade into his throat, and blood sprayed the air in a great fountain! His body went limp as he lost consciousness. The karma vanished when he dropped it, but no matter–there’s a whole field of it waiting to be dug up. You should have seen how quickly, how deftly I moved!

…Mona, don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t right of the old man to hoard such wealth! Once I get out and get my karma, I’ll be rich. Just wait and see.

---

My brother finished his tale. Even through the glass, I could see his eyes gleaming wildly, reflecting the neon orange of his jumpsuit.

I stared at him sadly.

“Jake,” I said, “that karma stuff, it’s worthless.”

The shape of his shoulders changed as my words sank in. “W–what?” he stuttered.

“NBC did a segment on it the other day. It’s basically trash–you’d have to pay people to take it.”

He gaped at me as I got up to leave. I was halfway to the door when he screamed a final, frustrated question at my back.

“If karma is worthless, why was the old man farming it?”