If Anya got all the money she wouldn't keep it for herself,that would be selfish. Anya would instead keep some to herself as she is struggling to pay bills and then the rest she wouldn't need, she would give it to need and put in the money for a fundraiser,give companies money so they can be paid and give everyone in the town 20 dollars as a start. She would try to make the world a better place,no problems with money and school has actually good things. Anya would make the world a better place and build up fundraisers for homeless people..

Anya would give to the people and need and not take it in for just herself she's not gonna pass the chance to give to people for once as she was struggling to. She got a home for her parents to get back up on their feet. She would also get better security for schools and get more cops to work at prison with a high rate at $20/h because prisoners get out all the time. That is what Anya would do with all of the money in the world which could be millions or even a few billions.

They called her Vivian, when they called her anything at all. She would seldom give out her name when she sat in at bars, content to sit and respond to calls of "Hey, Lady," with a middle finger or a sardonic smile. Maybe both.

She'd sit on a stool as close to the middle as she could get, and wait, eyes raking the crowd like she was looking for someone that didn't seem to exist. She'd stay for about an hour and then leave, driving all night to some other town and sitting in some other bar.

She was tired. She'd worked her entire adult life, garnering more and more attention until she finally gave up, weighed down by stacks and stacks of dollar bills that just kept getting heavier, even now that she wasn't working. Some asshole told her to invest and like a fool, she did, and her money was still growing day by day, a large, smoldering parasite that was putting a hunch in her back and blisters on the soles of her feet.

She could afford anything. Could buy herself a house on some exotic beachfront, buy herself a model for a husband, could probably buy two-point-five kids. She could buy herself a perfect lawn and trees and flowers, buy herself the finest meals this world has ever seen.

Instead, she went to bars, paying for gas as needed along the way, and sat with her hand over the top of her single drink and watched the crowd grow and ebb around her.

The only significant purchase she'd ever made was plastic surgery, her face now unrecognizable from the one that used to be plastered on the cover of magazines with headlines like "The Woman Who Beat Elon Musk: Five Tips She Has for Young Woman" (an article in a magazine that she'd never actually granted an interview to yet one that sold nearly a billion copies worldwide).

The bar she sat in now was particularly run down, the owners a tired couple with divorce lawyers bookmarked in their contacts and tenants that resembled fat city rats more than they resembled people. These places were Vivian's favorite, the scent of cheap booze and despair hanging over her like a blanket. They were nostalgic, almost; reminders of the nights that her father actually remembered to come home and would read, in his slurred yet kind voice, bedtime stories. Stories of dragons and scientists and inventors, big girl stories that little Vivian never quite understood but enjoyed anyway.

She let her eyes travel, blank and listless, over the crowd, still searching for someone that she was beginning to think she'd never find. A face the same age as her own, just beginning to show the telltale decay of age.

A face that represented her biggest regret, and a face who's absence represented her biggest fear.

Her hour was up, and she uncovered the top of her drink, leaving it to sit and wait, full, until someone cleaned it away.

She showed no reaction as some guy behind her asked if it hurt when she fell from heaven. Her face a wall. Behind it, all her fear and regret were boiling, invisible to everyone except her.

Her regret had a name. Bianca. Short, a little overweight but not unhealthy, only a single pimple to mar her pallid face. Beautiful in her normalcy. She was average.

Vivian realized, years too late, that every cruel word she'd said was out of jealousy. Bianca had the luxury of being normal, of not worrying about what others thought until Vivian forced her to worry. A luxury that Vivian did not have. Every grade was bullied to perfection, every feature was crushed down until it became something resembling beautiful, her mother living vicariously through every good-looking boy she brought home and threatening to disown her on the one genuine occasion that she brought home someone she loved on the basis of his appearance. He "wasn't pretty enough" to get her anywhere.

Maybe that was why Vivian had remained single. More than anything else, it was her mother's voice, telling her she needed to find a real man if she wanted to get anywhere in life.

Bianca had been hospitalized in her freshman year of high school and never returned, and on the night of Vivian's graduation she almost refused to walk the stage as the realization of what she'd done hit her like a truck. She didn't deserve to graduate. She'd nearly killed someone.

But in the end, her mother won, and she walked. Graduated salutatorian, an honor that disgraced her mother for years.

She was leaving a large tip as the door swung open. Not Bianca, this was a balding man with an indecipherable sports jersey.

She sighed at her own naivete and left, door slamming behind her. Retreated to her car, which, like her, was beginning to show its years. She didn't have the heart to replace it, even after she'd racked up nearly a hundred thousand miles. She intended to drive it until it broke down or until she finished her redemption mission, whichever came first.

She'd spent years wondering how much money she'd have to give. A million per every year of life? A billion?

At some point she realized that money was worthless. You could not reimburse an intrusive thought, could not bribe it into submission when you were the one who planted it there.

Even so, she kept searching, hoping to find a successful and happy woman rather than a headstone. She still hadn't found either one, and she'd googled Bianca's name at least two dozen times a month.

She'd scripted out her conversation. No flowery begging for apologies. Merely a statement, that she knew what she'd done and regretted it, that she hoped she'd found a way to move past it, or at least a way to cope.

No expectation for forgiveness, but a hope.

Vivian's next stop was in Cincinnati. They had some nicer bars, ones that glistened in the night, false veneers of happiness covering up a cesspool of tragedy that hung heavy inside them.

The saddest people tended to drink at the nicest bars with smiles on their faces.

It was nearing six in the morning, the threshold between night and day, between the early birds and the night owls, both suffering from the same affliction manifested in different ways.

She'd been to three bars tonight, unable to sleep, driven by some manic obsession.

This would be her fourth.

The bartender was a smiling blonde woman with short curly hair, heavy black eyeliner, and a wedding ring around a chain on her neck. She greeted Vivian with enthusiasm and Vivian decided that she liked her. That kind of radiance at six in the morning was rare to find. Either she was content and confident or she was on heavy drugs. Normally Vivian would lean to the latter, but with this particular individual, she was inclined to believe the former.

She actually took a sip of the drink before she covered it with her hand, motivated by some alien compulsion.

"How're you tonight, Hon," asked the bartender, her voice so soothing it was almost familiar.

Vivian just smiled and shrugged.

"Been a rough night?"

"I suppose. I'm looking for someone."

"Ah, ain't we all, girl."

Vivian allowed herself to laugh a little.

"I'm looking for someone I hurt. A girl I knew once."

"We've all hurt someone, Hon."

"Yeah, I suppose."

"Here's the thing. Whoever it was you hurt, she's probably moved on. Grown up, cried about it, and then moved on. Maybe she realized that you suffered just like her, in your own way. Maybe she taught herself to laugh at your insecurities, to pity the person you were. She doesn't need you to find her. Maybe she even found herself because of you."

Vivian looked up, startled by the poignancy of this stranger's words.

"I guess you have a point."

"I've seen all kinds of people here, Hon. Abusers, abused. And I'm telling you, a lotta times the abusers suffer for it even more than the abused do. Not always. There's always sickos, always exceptions. But more than once I've had a guy come in here three steps away from suicide because he hit his girlfriend once in high school. Everyone's got their issues. Their trauma. Tricky part is learning from it, excising your evil. Cause we all got evil, Hon."

Vivian's hour was up but she lingered for a moment more before getting up and smiling at the bartender.

"Thank you," she said.

"Anytime, Hon."

As Vivian left, her hand on the door, she took one look back. the bartender had moved on to the next person, smiling at some new stranger, putting them at ease with the sheer force of her kindness.

The name tag pinned neatly to her shirt read Bianca.

(Drift-er // a person who is continually moving from place to place, without any fixed home.)

She's tired. Tired of being strong. Tired of faking a smile. Tired of being "okay." At the end of every day, she dreams of a new place, a new life, and unpredictably predictable takes off in search of it. Everyone knows her, yet no one knows her; it's what to expect when you have the highest following and all the money in the world. Everyone thinks it's her "next adventure," but in reality, she's just a drifter with no true home. In her mind, if you don't let yourself get too close to someone, it won't hurt as bad when they leave you.

Yes, she's a drifter, but it's only the moment she lies her head on her pillow where she feels the safest not to be okay. She cries until she feels no more. Staying up half the night, she thinks of the impossible and dreams of what could have been... what would never happen in her lonely life. She could paint with all the tears that had come out of each eye. Drop by drop, little by little; the tears keep coming. She tells herself, "Turn it off," turn off the emotions, the feeling, the pain... to only drift away.

She drifts away into a beautiful world; dream after dream plays in her head. That's where she loves to spend her time, in those dreams. It's where she escapes, where there seem to be no worries or problems or heartache. The dreams are almost tangible to her, like she's a part of them. Like she can reach out and feel... well, anything really. She feels the grass under her feet. She feels rain and the happiness of laughter from dancing in it. She feels her late father wrap his arms around her into a loving squeeze. She feels home.

Then a loud noise interrupts the dream. It's a dreadful sound that gently brings her back to the real world. It's morning. The sun is shining through her window. She can feel the warmth of the curtain-stained beam landing on her bare shoulder. She can hear the wind sway the trees as the fall season approaches. She rolls to her back and opens her eyes to see her white ceiling. She tells herself, "You're going to be okay. It'll be a good day."

I was never one to sit still. There was so much world to explore, and I made it my mission to see as much as I could. I would pay people to just let me stay at their homes with them when I traveled. Hotels felt like I wasn't getting the true experience of the lands I visited. I remember when I ran into a situation that I couldn't buy my way out of. I was staying with a family who seemed alright. Typical nuclear family. Respectable children, quick with a "yes sir". Then on the day that I was to depart from them they informed me that I could not leave. I had to double check that I heard that right because I was staring at the front door, and it seemed like I definitely could leave as my exit was right there. They said they needed me. They said they had homed travelers before, but never anyone like me before. They protested my departure by making a wall in front of the door. I told them that they were being silly, and asked them politely to move. I began to just head for the door, and hoped that they would just get out of my way. Instead they all embraced me, and began sobbing. I felt kind of bad. I told them they were awesome, and if it was meant to be we would meet again someday. They wiped their tears away, and let me go. I'm planning a trip to see them again as we speak.

He must have been long on the ship. Or maybe the light was faulty. He was a good lay, three times. She turned to him for a goodbye, but he embraced—and did not let it go.

The doors crashed, and she understood at once. Family caught up with her after twenty-three years. She was bound, trussed, tied. drugged all at once, not to get away.

Sailor receiving payment sneered.

“Forty times more and you a bad fuck at that.”

»But did I pay you? « Her wrists were sleekest of the sleek. Sailor approached, expectant fool. A cut only. The member was not thick and meat anyway, and in the dust now, on the floor, where the sailor was too. Thump on the head. Blackness.

She was in pain, all of her. Tied to a torturer table. Breast, female organs, buttocks, neck, hair, all a one, big wound. Herren, the most hateful man on earth, smiled and talked into the air.

»First, any of counselors had you, then my personal guards, then any of soldiers, jailors, grooms, anyone at all. Any way, they wanted. Feel it? It’s a beginning only, for running from me on a wedding night and stealing All money amulet of our family. We almost died because of that.”

Butrissa waited. She learned that on the run. And in libraries, searching, searching. Where they never looked, dusty libraries are not for feisty wenches… Kveno, Dr’ghosih, Mora, all the teachings. And teachers, wise men, and women, gurus, mages, all of them, searching… and finding it. What goes around, comes around. So simple.

“But this is your home! You deserve a homecoming, from your family at least!”

Herren was clever, without doubt, but Gods took elsewhere for it—pudgy hands, smelling, fat body, face to scare the crows with.

“My bellowed non-consumed, but oh-so-many times consumed woman, do you remember saying you would prefer animals to me? Even after I told you the ultimate secret of ours, the talisman of All money. You gave me a drink, stole it, and run. Now it is my turn.”

“It's not All money. And not only.” She could manage that.

“It talks! But not for long! Its mouth will soon be full of animal male juice and organs, soon. And don’t tell me it’s not All money.

The whole family is on a buying spree. I bought more land than we ever had. King sold us three, count thee, noble titles, and it was only a beginning. I bring an amulet and a small chest, and when I open the chest, gold is there. All I need is one slave to carry the chest, and several more to take away what I bought.

Why did our grandparents never use it? Why? Afraid others will rob them?” Herren was happy.

Doors opened. Three faces appeared above her. Her sisters and mom. Hard, merciless, holding in their hands the leashes of dogs, lizards, and other animals, all visibly in heat, willing to penetrate anything. The helpless eagle spread Butrissa first. They stepped to her, eagerly to mutilate and demean.

“Last words,” she croaked.

“Maybe some treasure!” her mother squeaked, and they all lowered their faces to her.

Out of the sack, artificially grown in twenty years, she spits, high.

“Ahhhg… can’t see, it’s eating, m….” It was nice to listen, but it was time for Mora lesson, and she succumbed to it. Sounds stopped.

“How can she not see and suffer?! We gave her all the magic potions possible! ¨”

“There is a discipline of Mora. They could command their bodies to do or not to anything, possibly is it.”

“Stop her, then.”

“Cannot, is an inner command, not outer.”

“So, she is on a torture table, fucked by lizards and whatnot, but still commanding me?”

“Not commanding, only deciding to be conscious or not.” The mage saw her eyes and wallowed her in balsam, but she knew it was too late, she was dying. It numbed her but helped.

“Are you happy now? Your mother, blind, maggots crawling out of her face, jumped off the balcony. Your older sister, with one eye, had a stillborn and died. And your younger sister went mad, is in jail, tied, tried to eat her eyes, ears, and nose. Happy? ¨

“Yes.” The Kveno imperative and affirmative now. The room trembled.

“Wait, wait waaaait. Bring him. Now.” A beautiful boy, too beautiful. A willow, thin limbs, small wonderful face, exuding nobility.

“Your half-brother, Jirmane, your mother, had him on the sly. You will not wish ill to him, ah? Ah?”

“What do you want?”

“What is really written on the amulet?”

“All buy.” Watching Jirmane. To turn his head.

“That’s all? You had me worried! We will go now and conquer the world, and you will help us.” Waiting, for Jimane to turn. He did. And had a sign. Her family was the only one without a sign there. And an evil smile of his was thrown at her.

“Just once more will I help. When the end is here, there will be writing on the other side of the talisman too And you will understand.”

“Torture Jirmane, torture him without stopping!”

“Yes, do it. I will love hearing it.”

Sounds and cries helped her through a maze of pain. Days. Jirmane died, eaten, and the food was gone.

“What did you do? All males in castle fucking you died, the city it dying, the kingdom of mine too, why, why, why.”

“Time for the ultimate lesson.”

“Here, you bitch,” he sliced the sword in her womb and above.

Thank you, Mora.

“Yes, that’s it. Now my last words. Look at the talisman.”

“Same fucking name!”

“Now turn it.

And goodbye, I go now.”

He turned the All buy talisman, and on the other side new words appeared.

All pay

Larry sat at the bar, looking at the last few drops of Scotch in his glass. The hotel lounge across the street from the hospital where Larry's wife died last year is probably the last place you would expect to see him on a Saturday night.

Nothing in his life made sense since he lost her. When they found out she had cancer, he had been a dutiful husband. Stuck with her through every chemo treatment, every appointment, told her she was beautiful when her hair fell out and held her as she cried every night.

On the day she died, something changed. The doctor told him that she had only hours to live. Larry had the strangest reaction. For the man who had been so supportive and so brave, he just couldn't be there anymore. Larry nodded to the doctor and then proceeded to walk away.

Larry took the elevator down to the main floor, walked out the front exit and waited patiently at the intersection. When the light went green he crossed the street and went into the corner store. Larry bought a lottery ticket for the first time in his life. He had no idea why.

Larry then went into the hotel next door and sat at the bar in the hotel lobby. He drank and drank until they would serve him no more. Then Larry went to the front desk and booked a room facing the hospital. He couldn't see his wife's room, it was facing the other direction. He sat at the window staring at the hospital anyways.

Hours went by before he had the nerve to check his phone. By the missed calls he knew what had happened. She was gone.

Later that week he found out that she had bought a life insurance policy on herself without telling him. Because she had been so young and healthy, the premiums were cheap and the payout high. He was paid 6.3 million dollar. She truly did love him.

Larry hated all the money and he donated it all to charity.

The following week he remembered the lottery ticket. Larry checked the numbers, he had won the jackpot. 100 million dollars.

The lottery official told him he could take 20 million a year for the next 5 years or 63 million all at once. Larry took the lump sum.

Larry had thought of donating the money, or even burning it. He was so ashamed that he had abandoned the person he loved the most right when she needed him the most.

The next day he gave all the money to the humane society. His wife had loved animals.

Larry got a call from his lawyer. It turns out his wife had invested heavily in Bit Coin when it was just starting up. She had made a fortune and put the order in to sell before she passed away. He had a cheque for 630 million dollars waiting for him. She wanted to surprise him but never got the chance.

When Larry hung up the phone he began to sob. He didn't believe in fate, but he couldn't understand what was happening. Why was the universe rewarding him for his cowardice?

Later that day he got a call from the contractor working on his house. There was a mold issue and they were replacing the drywall. The contractor had found a hidden storage space. Inside, all kinds of gold bars. The previous owner must have stashed it there and never told anyone before he died. Larry had bought the house at an estate sale. It was all his.

Now a year had gone by and Larry sat alone at the hotel bar across the street from the hospital where his wife died. He had sold his house. He couldn't stand to be there anymore. Living out of a hotel is not cheap, but fortunately for Larry the hundreds of millions he now possesses easily covers the bill.

After all, his wife's nickname for him had always been, "Lucky Larry."

I’m an only child. Today, after I graduate from high school, my billionaire parents and I are boarding a private jet. We will travel around the world for 62 days, stopping in all the places I chose as my graduation present. I’m a bit concerned about that much family time, but when they asked what I wanted, I couldn’t think of a single thing.

It feels like we’ve already travelled half-way around the world on this one flight. I find the lightning piercing through fluffy clouds amazing, although I don’t enjoy the sudden drop in pressure. Suddenly, we are on a downward spiral without time to even think of what might happen next.

I’m no longer an only child. I’m an orphan. Why did I have to survive that awful wreck and lose both of my parents? Uncle Joe came quickly to be with me, but I never cared for my dad’s brother. Of course, he didn’t understand when I said, “I will never go home again.”

Now I have a billion dollars in my name. Nowhere I really want to go, and nowhere I want to be. I remember hearing about some very expensive trips going to the moon. I can definitely afford that. Wonder what they will do when I get there and refuse to go home?

It was a blissful Saturday morning in New Jersey. I stationed myself near a bakery and sat down. I grasped a tin can in my hand, hoping for a bit of change. One by one, the customers entered the bakery and left, not even glancing at me. Of course, to them, I was a poor man with a shabby old beard and raggedy clothes. I sighed and got up to leave when a young boy dropped a quarter into the can. It landed with a loud clang and I looked up at him to see him smiling. As he walked away I pulled out a hundred dollar bill and snuck it into his backpack. Perhaps he would buy a new toy car or an action figure. I smiled to myself and left.

The next day I woke up in the alley where I normally slept. I decided to take a visit to the bank. When I entered, the lady at the front desk was rather surprised to see me.

"Mr. Monzerelli, what are you doing here?"

I whipped out my premium card and replied, "I'd like to make a transaction of 250,000 dollars please."

The lady nodded and escorted me to my personal bank, which was the size of a house.

I took out some wads of hundred-dollar bills before thanking the lady.

As I exited the bank, the lady stopped me and asked, "Why when you have the fortune of a billionaire would you stay on the streets, homeless?"

I just smiled and laughed. "Oh to me it doesn't matter whether I'm rich or not. I care about giving back to those who have been so kind to me.

The lady was still confused and just stared at me as I joyfully walked away.

driving down the coast of Rancho Sante , my body placed in a matte black Dodge Challanger Srt Hellcat. The windows were rolled all the way down, as my ring filled hand glides through the wind my majestic car is warring through. Hearing the engine roar for every speed boost I conjur makes a light smirk pop against the corner of my mouth. This is what I want to feel every second. The freedom, having the most sexiest car ever, the base dropping and lighly shaking the car as '151' by JID is soaring through each ear. I find a empty parking lot perfect for donuts and drifing. Hearing each crack and pur feuls my body with energy focued on going faster and better. Scratches and black marks painted the entire parking lot. The Owner of the only buisness along it comes out waving a cloth with a tinted angry look. I waft my hand up mouthing 'im sorry' as I change gears to reverse so I can just get out. He notices the Charm on the back of my car. My family had gone to Cochella and Paris Hilton had worked on some car acessories and they had made this 3D Emblem of a dragon to attach to your car. He whipped his phone out and went to take a photo of it with his zoom in camera. I laughed and waited for him to start recording so I roared the engine and he smiled, seconds later I made it earsplitting as I dfifted the corner and headed to the lake near by to pop what ever expensive drink they obtained for the opening of my Ferenzics Phsycology Buisness. It had started as me blogging my interactions with criminals as I worked as a Phsycologist in Jails, then it came more into me becoming a main referal for the Job. I had gained confindence in my ability at the skill of writing and acting upon the mind. I used a good portion of what major Buisness like Yahoo or Google ect. use to start up their buinsess, making it the most profound structure for this feild in all of Southern California. The red string covering the perimter of the 1263 foot tall dream. It had all you could imagine, I futurama'd that shit. All I could of every dreamed in a build was over my head, literally. I noticed from afar as I walked closer to the grand entrance, along one of the lines of accorised tables were some old friends of mine. I had taken my life from something so dusty and derived, into a big and prodound achievement. Thats all I ever hoped to achieve after the years of waiting to finally be free and alone.

First, a few alternative title options to consider:

1) Wacky Mental Constructs In The Age Of Feckless Metaphor Junkies.

2) Letter-Littering Literacy Lets Literal Letter-Lickers get Lit

3) The Wealthiest Woman In The World Has To Have A CAT

4) MONEY: what is it good for? Absolutely nothing to do.

5) There's No Place Like Oz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a trifling side-note for the sidenote-patience-inclined: Don't you just love that a brood of cute little furry kittens is called a "litter"? ...(AND that that is the exact same name we give to the gritty stuff we subsequently buy for them to litter in???) There's a touch of perfection in that one somewhere. But then, truth can be found in any fabrication, 'long as one has ears to see and mine's to think and 'earts to hear.

___________________________________________

_____And now for something completely related:_____

____________________________________________

They weren't hers;

The ideas she kicked around.

She'd simply collected the remnants of things which caught her eye...

Quotes and quips and nips and notes.

The scraps of brilliance that no one wanted to buy anymore.

(Except environmentalists offering 10 cents a thought in the better receptacles - Not worth the bother really.)

They weren't her bits of metal and/or-papery-plastic ideas by rights,

They were public waste; old cans to kick,

And she was definitely a waste depository.

'Decided that from starts:

News ain't near as nice as Olds.

Birth-marked on her curiosity-peeking soul.

And she beheld them as so beautiful;

The un-hers bits and bobs of wits and whatnot-to-dos.

She couldn't have recreated them if she tried.

Not in a million years. Not with a million immaculate examples.

She got the tummyrotting feeling that no-one could these days.

Not even geniuses.

She'd seen the outside of the factory that produced ideas once. What a great big ominous thing that structure'd been. One that would require knowledge instead of mere ideas to build.

Knowledge... what a gargantuanly powerful thing it seemed to be. (But how easy to trick people with. What damage it could cause in the wrong hands or paws.)

No, it wasn't for her; knowledge. She'd stick to ideas. (Just as ideas would stick to her.)

And she wouldn't dare taste what they once contained:

These paltry vestigial vestibules of commercially bold-colored hopes and dreams (and p'rhaps a smidge' or two of propaganda sprinkled in to-taste) spawned from the smoke-belching belly of the Knowledge-Juggling-Beast.

For she'd gathered the notion somewhere (ingrained as a genetic survival mechanism maybe, like goosebumps at the sight of spiders) that a sip of that kind of fizzy-sweets'll make your brain swell up overgrown and pompous for a lifetime.

So instead she just enjoyed sniffing the empty bottles and guessing the flavors.

And she played with them; the catchy ones.

Those ideas that weren't hers by any right other than abject admiration...

She kicked them around with either glee or dejection depending- usually against brick walls.

Once a cat joined in her can kickery, swatting with untamed enthusiasm in frantic flicks of soft-clawed jubilation with far more dexterity than she ever could. She smiled. What a brilliant cat. But the cat soon got bored with it. Stood back and licked his paw aloofly - suddenly disgusted with himself for his own kittenish instinct.

She reached out to pet him and he hissed and scampered off.

Then it was back to the brick walls.

Most days she'd kick idea-cans at walls real genteelly so as not to ding them up; the precious, sacred, and mighty-collectable idealings that is, not the walls. The walls could crumble for all she cared... They were useless walls anyway. Garden walls. Eden walls... Alright, if she stopped to stare a minute she'd admit secretly that a certain prettiness pervaded them too... A structure. A meaning... But not near so much as it did the ideas.

Once in a bold blue moon she'd get maddened enough to punch a futile hole in the spacetime continuum, and she'd kick her beloved thoughts so hard that they'd crunkle up; buckle against the stupid ignorant ugly brick wall she was trying to persuade to play,

and one of the wall's bricks would chip

ever so slightly

on the edge near the age-weakened mortar,

and it was so elating - so darn satisfying for a split second

But then the remorse:

Such remorse as she'd never felt before.

What in the hell was she thinking? Not even the environmentalists would take crushed up things like those ideas anymore. Not that they ever really wanted them anyway. They just wanted to be the ones who got rid of them; the ones to pay to see them off the streets and everything neat and tidy so they don't have to feel quite as guilty about being a living organism who's alive by the mysterious graces of the Knowledge-Juggling-Beast and hating themselves for it...

Well. Toss 'em. She'd take the guilt, she'd take the guilt for everyone. Dash it all - she'd make the guilt worse for the sake of those beautiful bold ideas. The mindlessly niggly naggy environmentalists didn't deserve the ideas if they were just going to destroy them. She was suddenly sure of that. They didn't give a snot. No: worse: They Hated ideas. What had the ideas ever done to deserve that kind of animosity? She'd keep the ideas for herself. Ideas were still beautiful, even when crunkled. Maybe even more beautiful she imagined in a half-baked spurt of spontaneous megalomania; an abstract useless beauty; the ideas. The best kind! Yeah. Art. That's what. She started cackling to herself maniacally...

Woke up the next morning; Brain all damp and wiggly. Damn. Had she tasted knowledge on accident?

............................................

It was some time after that, in the merciful shade of a manufactured palm frond, that she started feeling lonely. Not just "started feeling" actually, more like got heatstruck by it in the dead of winter. Melty for it. Plum oozy over it.

Not for home. She'd never needed home, not really. She'd take helter skelter over shelter any day. Or so she'd say... Really shelter was pretty undeniably convenient for the preservation of life and sanity, no matter how anarchic your birth-soul wanted to make you out to be. The manufactured palm frond for instance was paid-for by her gorgeous brilliant masterful pet- Master cat. (Yes, that selfsame playful maniac who'd turned frigid and scarpered on her idea-kickery. It'd take too much filler to make it make sense right now, just sit-tight-shut-up-and-roll with the skeptically chosen metaphors- if you will. Chekhov shall likely approve in the end) But she digresses egregiously.

The oozy melty heatstruckey lonely feeling sunk her mud-puddled belly into a nice cool pit of beauteous despair. A stew-cooking morsel of time of wallowing in that kind of irksomely blue-spangled nightscape would turn even the coldest-hearted feminist into a hypocritical cock-craving dildo-diddling lunatic, and our girl was anything but a feminist. Never a silicon-phallus made which could satisfy her lust for meaning. Not even the mechanically purring vibrating ones could quell her life-loving urges.

No, if anything she was a bit of masculinist maybe - instantly adored anything with a shred of patriarchy left in it.

Not leastly 'coz anything that did have that shred approved of her beloved idea-collection enough to give her a second once-over...

But mostly because those paragons of kindred inkling-lovers also had idea collections of their own. Fascinating gorgeous collections. Objectively more impressive collections than hers (though in sentimental moments she still preferred her crushed and crumpled artsy ones for nostalgic feel-wellers.)

Maybe some of these patriarchal-genius-shred-exemplifiers had even worked for the Knowledge Juggling Beast factory earlier in life? Maybe some of them even, the rascally ones, had imbibed sips from the idea's sparkling fresh-content vat? Gosh was she ever curious.

She'd sniff in for a look, cautiously crashing their dashingly daunting abodes, and they'd give her gifts in return for unsolicited flashes of smiles-and/or-tits.

Magnificently antique and retro gifts the likes of which she'd never clapped eyes on before. And she worshiped and she treasured. She added them to hers.

She forgets sometimes, even now, that it's not hers; the collection. She needs to remember that; Be properly humbled and humiliated by the shocking remembrance of the thats:

That loving something doesn't make it yours.

That she can't recreate ideas near as pretty as those in her collection.

That none of the ideas stemmed from her.

That she's not a knower, never was, just a gatherer. At best an adder.

That that's all anyone is anymore. (Even the likely-vat-sippers she deigns to worship; those callous-handed humorists she had the audacity to bow to and/or tip hats with.)

Then it hit her that maybe that's all anyone ever was:

Idea collectors.

And she woke up with a cruelly-sober jolt and throbbing brain at a light too harsh for human eyelids to block out.

Drat she'd done it again;

Unintentional knowledge-tickling.

Dammit. No! No knowledge for her. Ideas. Ideas alone for her.

Please, dear Knowledge Juggling Beast,

please, dear mystery, dear doubt, dear God,

Don't force her to see those precious ideas as others see them; As a scourge. As a sin. As a bore. As junk. As waste in a wasteland. No, not to her. To her they'll be treasures. Treasures to her. Always. What a wealth she'd accrued of them. What a sparkling beautiful trove she had. What a vast accumulation she'd morphed from them. Existence can't exist in a void. Don't let it be for nothing. Please. It was hers, wasn't it? The collection? It was unique to her wasn't it? Doesn't this one gem of obscurity in her collection prove that? Surely no-one else in the world has that idea in their collection anymore?

Why can't it be the case that every single thing on the planet, material and immaterial alike, goes to the one person who loves it the most? Why can't thoughts be owned, and loved, and kept? ...Is it because they grow too big?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The cat sidled in to her thought-pit then and purred. She loves it when he purrs at her. So comforting. He had knowledge alright. Knowledge enough for both of them. Knowledge enough to shun and ban and shame her idea collection to smithereens. Knowledge enough to be bored with everything.

But cats are never truly past being kittenish (or literary) on occasion.

He pawed at one of the ideas he'd let her keep to stave off madness; a super nostalgic one. Nostalgic to anyone who'd ever read and/or seen it. One of her first ever ideas which weren't hers but still were. A wizard of an idea if ever a wiz there was. She grinned at the cat's suddenly rekindled interest. They flicked and kicked the common idea back and forth to each other until it wasn't pointlessly haphazard nor crumply-aluminium-can shaped anymore. Until it was round and bouncy shaped. Until it was sloppily sophisticated; specialized; a game.

Then, when they'd finished, the cat curled up on her belly and slept and purred some more. And her precious ideas seemed at last to take on a whole new meaning; to become something better than treasure; better than collectible nick-nacs and doodads; better than matter; better than wealth, far better than tricksy false knowledge. The ideas turned into more ideas.

And she sobbed happily,

Silently,

Clutching her thoughts and rubbing the hairy belly of her aloofly knowledgeable cold-comfort cat...

The wealthiest woman in the world wept heartily

For she became aware that she was pregnant with her own litter.

And it would be the literariest litter there ever was. Oh she loved, oh how she'd love that litter; that brooding brood of literal-thinkers and illiterate litter-kickers alike. It would be her litter, hers, if ever a lit there was. For she loved it more than anyone had ever loved anything in the history of the world.

The warm putrefaction of time-honored profundity (and p'rhaps a rogue hormone or two) trickled down her blushing cheeks, watering the well-littered seeds of life.