What to do with this substantial check, in 500 words or less?

Substantial to one is survival to another.

$1000 is a lot of food, even with eggs at $5/dozen. But it won’t cover a month’s rent.

$5,000 would cover the rent, but not the credit card debt.

$10,000 pays the credit, but not the student loans.

$25,000? A deep breath of relief I haven’t taken in years.

A moment of swimming, not sinking.

How long will it last? Will I get another? What if I mess this up?

And now I’m spiraling again.

But there’s a minute, when I first open that check where it doesn’t matter if it’s a dollar or a thousand. That check says, “Someone read your words and they see you as a writer.”

The value of this check is in its validation.

I’ll spend it on my self-esteem,

Invest it in my imagination,

And deposit whatever’s left in my dreams.

It was one of the most fulfilling moments of my life: To be paid, and paid well, for a work of fiction to which my pen had given birth. My mind...my imagination. Finally, my creativity had given birth to something that would take on a life of its own outside of my mind. And I was getting paid!

It seemed like so much money at first. I mean, it was a lot of money. I had never been paid six figures all at once before. The taxes were significant. Not a surprise, but still depressing when you've already made a list of where the funds will go.

We had mold people come in and rip out the walls in the basement. They removed the mold I could smell but no one could see (a possible catalyst to my husband's Parkinson's) and waterproofed the walls before new floors, sheet rock, molding and waterproof paint. We also added a bath and shower so that my octogenarian in laws wouldn't have to trudge up two flights to use the full bath upstairs.

We hired an arborist to help the trees that look sick in our garden and remove the branches of the half dead tree that has been leaning on the roof for years. And then we replaced the roof (including adding insulation so we can stop losing all the heat in the winter). We used solar shingles -- for the environment, to lower our electric bills and to charge my husband's car [his favorite ever, by the way. The only one he ever named: kara ılan (black snake).]

We hired a contractor to paint my mom's house and a landscaper to take care of the bushes and weeds that drive her crazy, so that she can concentrate on planting the flowers she likes. We also paid for her annual trip to Vegas with a three week stay at the Bellagio, The Venetian and the Aria, and tickets to all her favorite shows.

We paid for my son's wedding so his fiancées family could concentrate on her baby brother's cancer treatment that insurance refused to cover; sadly, even with the specialized proton therapy, there was a concern that he could develop secondary cancers due to a genetic mutation.

We helped my step-brother pay for a home attendant since, after over a month in the hospital, a surgery, myriad tests, daily physical therapy and a severe case of diarrhea incurred while in the hospital, doctors could not figure out why he still couldn’t feel his feet (the original reason he was admitted to the hospital) and insurance was no longer willing to pay them to figure it out and certainly not for a home attendent.

At this point, not only had we spent every last penny of the check from my publisher, we had had to dip into our savings, something I avoid doing most of the time.

Clearly, I needed to write a sequel. Or two. Maybe I could get a movie deal...

I’d feed it to the debt.

To the beast that sits sullenly on my chest.

To the monster grinding me to ash.

To the freedom that never existed.

Just another dime.

Just another dollar.

Just another thing to add to my dusty, useless collection.

I’d buy back my soul from the corporate devil.

I’d laugh in the Joneses' faces as I sold off every last scrap of garbage cluttering the nooks and crannies of my life.

And if there was anything left,

I’d buy that little cabin in the woods.

I’d sit in the solitude of escaping the race of rats.

I’d breathe in the important.

The little laughs.

The mud between the toes.

The growing people, growing things marching in the whisper of quiet days gone by.

I’d swallow down gulps of the essence of life, until I was bursting full, ready to wither in silent contentment.

But who am I kidding?

A windfall doesn’t do much when you need a hurricane.

I’d feed it to the monster, the corporate devil, the debt.

And when I had,

It’d still be hungry

For more.

Why try to win the Powerball -- I just got a check for $100 which was totally unexpected. I had to write a term paper for school which turned into a novel. Was shocked when I got an A+ and my teacher suggested submitting my story online.

Two dozen glazed donuts will be my first purchase. Finally, I can be the one who brings treats to our early morning practice. Can’t decide if I should tell my parents about this. I know they would be proud to think their one and only daughter is now a published author. But they definitely will want me to sock away the remaining $80 of this gift for my future education.

This might be the only time in my life when I can do something totally unheard of. I’ll create a challenge which anyone can enter. All they have to do is describe their plans for spending this unexpected windfall.

as a child i would promise myself

that if i was ever rich,

i'd donate most of it to charity.

when i received my first paycheck

i donated most of it to charity

and stored the rest away

in case of emergency.

when i received my second paycheck,

i figured my obligation to charity had already

been fulfilled:

so i gave some to my family.

college funds, illness, meals out,

trips to visit,

and stored the rest away

for a rainy day.

when i received my third paycheck,

i figured it was high time that

i treated myself

so i browsed

online catalogues

dyed my hair,

built a tiny house

maybe got

a surgery or two,

and stored the rest away

because you never know.

when i received my fourth paycheck,

i started worrying about

taxes,

after all, more and more

of my paycheck

was being taken.

i hired someone to file them for me

(let's be real, no one really

likes doing them anyway)

and stored the rest away

because you can never be too careful.

when i received my fifth paycheck

i hired a lawyer

because my family

was starting to beg for money.

they wanted my house, my car, my generosity

as if i was nothing more than a bank.

and it wasn't just them––

my friends, my significant others––

i was reduced to nothing more

than the number after the dollar sign,

and stored the rest away

so they can pick my corpse when i'm gone.

when i received my sixth paycheck

i sat and stared at it for a long moment

wondering what i could do with it

now that i no longer had anyone left

to spend it on.

i'd begun to pray

for something bad to happen

just so i'd have a good reason

to spend my money

on something worthwhile.

but nothing happened, so i

held my breath

and stored the rest away

for a day that might never come.

when i received my seventh paycheck

i started looking

for adventure

something new and exciting

to fill the void inside of me,

searching for some space odyssey

or underwater exploration.

the danger

filled me with energy:

a reason to live, a purpose.

so i booked a trip

and stored the rest away

for the next adventure.

when i received my eighth paycheck,

the world got smaller.

adventures taken,

families funded,

charities built,

companies bought.

i had done everything there was to do

and stored the rest away

for the next life.

when i received my ninth paycheck

i wondered if it was possible to buy

salvation,

if i could buy companionship

on my deathbed,

or if i could buy immortality.

i wondered

if everyone were immortal

would we pay to die,

always looking

for what we can't have?

i started preparing for my inevitable end,

and stored the rest away

for another person to take my place.

when i received my tenth paycheck

there was no one left

to cash it.

Okay, I’ll dream big. I’ll tell you about something beyond your wildest fantasies of wealth. An “unexpected windfall” could be enough to cover rent for a month or enough to allow me to quit my job. For the purpose of this exercise — and of feeding the tiny glimmer of hope my brain keeps locked up in the land of make-believe — I’ll proceed as if this is a mind-boggling, life-changing amount.

Of course, I would take care of the necessities. I could actually buy a house after an entire lifetime of living in rentals. I would pay off my parents’ mortgage and all the student loans getting in the way of our success. Maybe we would get on one of those crazy new space flights that private companies are starting to offer.

That’s all great and honorable. It would eliminate a lot of heartache and stress, of course. There’s one thing you can’t buy with any lottery winnings. The richest people in the world can’t afford it because it can’t be bought. Time is priceless. You can’t buy it until we figure out how to make time machines work. You can get pretty close with some shortcuts only the wealthy can afford, though.

I would quit my job, leave the hustle culture, stop climbing the ladder, and walk away from responsibility. I would have a small army hired to run my household so I can sit with a blissfully unemployed glow on my face. I would sink into my big, leather couch with a boozy milkshake and enjoy the weightlessness of everything being taken care of without a devastating mental load. I would wake up at noon, take an afternoon nap, and fall asleep late at night without a single worry in my mind.

I desperately want to walk away from the “grind” and pour that energy into my hobbies instead. God, what a disgusting obsession we have with killing ourselves to live. All this struggle for what? So we can live with crippling anxiety that we’ll lose our health and home at any time and die penniless? I think that’s the one thing Gen Z has gotten right: do your job, but don’t let anyone exploit you by rewarding productivity with more responsibility.

I don’t want to chase a promotion just to effectively make less money each year as inflation climbs. I want to sit back in my big, leather couch. Sometimes I can roleplay this fantasy for a few hours on weekends. It’s not as intoxicating as the real thing, but the dream is enough to make reality just a tad bit more bearable. I’ll just keep telling myself that while I make fancy slideshows for a living.

They don’t make them like they used to.

Envelopes used to be easier to rip open, or steam open. Between paper cuts and interlayered plastic, I do better snipping off the shorter side.

Opening up expected news has become a ritual between us. Too long we witnessed memories without each other; every opportunity of future ones we wait until the other is ready to join in the moment. My husband is finally home, so here it goes.

“Dear Mrs. Wingerd, …” and here Hubby cannot wait any longer and must read it side by side with me. Side by side. As we’ve sowed, so shall we reap. Tears, jittery fists, and jostling don’t make reading the letter easy. We jump up and down like fools together. “BABE!!! YOU DID IT!!!”

Immediate plans set the check into a savings account or possibly a mutual fund, not doing anything with it until we’ve slept at least a day. Or fortnight. But this is what we do. We create this safety buffer by releasing ties to it temporarily, and then begin to dream. Will this fund the next research trip for the sequel? Will it provide money for passports for the kids? All of their homeschool education comes out of pocket so communally celebrating the rewards by furthering their world experience makes the most sense.

We clink glasses of a Sheehan bottle we’ve saved for awhile, totally enraptured in this, our moment. Gratitude, silliness, uncontained joy. Definitely a tithe, we remember now. The writing was meant to help our community, so this is an obvious sign we are in the right place doing the right thing. A tithe will complete that literacy program our church significantly supports. What do we do with the rest of it?

We consider a $200 getaway weekend (we can go at it cheaply in New Mexico) and further steam in the enriching affirmation I find so wonderful. And then it becomes obvious: our down payment. I’m a full-time homemaker who doesn’t monetarily add to “the vault”, as Hubs calls it. So far I’ve only participated by protecting it and allowing copious amounts of overtime. This bump in savings would allow us to leave a dangerous, cannibalistic neighborhood even sooner. Again, no permanent decisions until we’ve slept on it. But this grounding thought returns us from the high of anything-possibilities to our current dream growing bigger by the dollar.

I daydream of the future refuge we seek while window shopping on Sunday drives. It won’t be far now. And what a writer, artist, bookworm, and child’s paradise it is.

I set my bags down on the threshold and breathed in deeply.

This was my home, only mine, for the entire month of June.

Realizing my lifelong dream of being an actual published author of a work of fiction had been a dizzying whirl of deadlines, promotional tactics, emails, and a swiftly filling social calendar. In the wake of all this, I had decided to take a portion of my earnings to run away.

I needed time to let this all sink in, to appreciate this life goal being met, to get my bearings for the next idea. I wasn't even planning to do any writing, I just needed space. To remember who I was.

And so, here I was, suspended by a bridge to my very own treehouse villa, rented for a full month. No family or friends allowed.

I smiled to myself, and stepped through the door.

(I've recently signed up with a literary agent so this could actually happen to me. Like most of my writing, this will be close to reality)

As a child, most of my aspirations were limited to chocolates, action-figures, sports equipment and food. I still am that person but I now have a few more goals. As I grew older, my father made me wiser (a bit). I now have a set of goals which include

- financial stability

- a writing career

- funding my travel and

- working on causes I believe in

I promised myself that my first paycheck would be split into five parts. Two years into the journey, nothing has changed.

Firstly, I'd have to treat my friends and family who have been supportive of my writing. The first part of this unexpected windfall would do that. I'd take them to a restaurant or take them on a trip (two birds with one stone) depending on the check. It could be anything between a meal at our favourite restaurant to a week in Bali.

The second part would involve adding some money to my savings. I'm a person with a background in finance. It would be very unlike me if I did not have savings on my mind. I have a diversified portfolio and I'd add money to this portfolio in my preferred proportions.

A writing career is my passion. While I love interacting with people and fans (I hope so), I'm not the best when it comes to marketing. I will set aside some money for a PR agency to help me build my presence as a writer. Who knows? If I can live from what I write, my passion and my profession would be the same. Isn't that a dream?

I love to travel. I travel once every quarter (at the least). I travel solo, with friends and with family with equal happiness. There have been a few trips that I have been postponing due to financial reasons. This would be the time to revisit the best of those plans.

Finally, I'm a person who loves to help people. I looked at a lot of causes and there were only two that resonated with me. 'Education for All' and 'Clean Environments'. I focused on the first. On October 18th 2021, I started the VK Scholarship (DEEPAM Venkatachalam - Kalyani Scholarship). I'd like to develop this and fund the education of a minimum of a hundred kids from underprivileged backgrounds.

I was once told that life doesn't wait for us. We need to try making every moment count. In every moment in my life now, I am working on all my dreams. That has made me one of the happiest people I know. This check for my writing, would help me do it better. Let me keep hoping.

(Thanks for setting up this topic. I don't know if I will win but was fun to write what was on my mind)

It arrives in the mail - the pay check for my first novel. I knew it was coming, but my heart still races as I tear open the envelope and allow my eyes to feast on the number there. More than I had ever dared to hope for.

I've dreamed of having a home for so long. One where I can paint the walls, knock in nails to hang paintings, really settle in, without the threat of ridiculous rent rises, or sudden evictions. I'm exhausted from having to move all the time, tired of the uncertainty, of packing all my belongings into cardboard boxes and having to haul them to somewhere new. I want a garden that can grow over time. A modest house, with a timber frame - one that can last for generations. On a piece of land that is big enough to welcome any family who might wish to live there with me.

My best friend is struggling after having her baby. She feels like her body is a warzone. I want to visit her, pamper her, lift her out of the struggle. Stay with her a while as she recovers from the physical and psychological rollercoaster that is new life.

I have four brothers, each who I would like to help. A cash gift, to allow them to fulfil some of their dreams. One is living on a boat, his bank account is empty and he can't work until his visa is approved. The cash would ease some of his stress for a while.

Another is about to embark on a pilgrimage in Japan. Perhaps he will use his gift when he returns from his healing journey.

A third is managing the family farm, desperately trying to crawl out from the oppressive control of our father. Perhaps this would help him a little in that endeavour.

The fourth, just eighteen, is travelling for an undisclosed period of time. I'm sure he has a thousand ways to spend any extra money.

If the windfall is enough, I'd like to invest some. Having a guaranteed stable income for the future would be such a comfort.

But I'd also like to give back. Having prompts such as these has really helped encourage me to write, to practise my craft, to hone my skills. On days where I sit, staring at the blank screen, feeling empty, it's such a source of inspiration and comfort. I'd like to create a quarterly writing competition, with a generous prize, but also perhaps weekly competitions, with more modest prizes. Both are helpful for aspiring writers.

Lastly, I'd probably take a little holiday, possibly to the north of France. I've been learning the language and it would be a wonderful excuse to go there and practise for a little while. The beautiful thing about writing, is you can do it anywhere.