A Fallen Millionaire

Oliver sat by the window, blowing the last cigar and watching tall buildings outside move away from him. Shortly came into his eyes were not glimmers of the metropolis but vast fields lying under the dark sky. The chilly wind roared, beating against the window repeatedly, like a debt collector from hell sent by his father.

“I will fulfill my pledge. Take back what I’ve lost,” he whispered, with a few tears creeping down his cheeks.

The glories he boosted about, sitting on a luxury yacht, drinking with famous singers, or traveling by presidential trains, flashed into his mind little by little. Thinking of these, he could not help bursting into tears. However, nobody in the carriage noticed him and even his cry.

“If someone were listening to my complaints and applauding my ambition, I would give him half of my belongings,” he murmured.

“One hundred dollars is enough. It is a big deal for a vulgar man. With this money, these docile slaves will serve and please me. Money is everything for these guys,” he said to himself, sneering at everyone lying along the aisle.

Knowing what he wanted, he felt so close to himself that he would get drunk if the feeling were a cup of poisoned liquor.

“Take your luggage away. You share two positions,” a fat middle-aged woman yelled out.

“I am highly educated. I am a gentle man. I am a millionaire. Don’t dispute with such a vulgar woman,” he reassured himself, carrying the luggage away mildly.

Sandwiched between the fat woman and hard luggage, he spent half the night questioning himself why he was reduced to sleeping and breathing in the same carriage with the poor. He attempted to find the answer, but every time he approached it, he was afraid to acknowledge the truth.

Faint lights throughout the fields were nothing for a man used to living under spotlights, but they were everything for the man exiled from heaven to hell. However, faint lights went out with night wearing a heavy coat. Gradually, he closed his drowsy eyes, yearning for another day to come.

A few hours later, a deafening siren awakened him. He rubbed his blurred eyes, yawned, and saw a bearded man shouting at the rusty iron door. Even from a few seats away, he could see his saliva flying in the air.

“Who woke me up? Someone holds accountability for this fault,” the man exclaimed, rolling up his sleeves and clenching his fists.

“Calm down. There is a pregnant woman. Don’t scare her,” Oliver said gently, confident about his problem-solving capability.

Unexpectedly, his ambition to win everyone over declared no success.

“How honored I am to take the same train with a gentleman in my life,” the man sneered.

Waves of laugher at him filled the carriage after the man finished words.

Suddenly, he felt a balloon full of nobility broke. Just when he was drowned in a sea of shame, the rusted door opened, shifting all attention from him to who got off first. The aisle was crowded with passengers, who had laughed at him a few minutes ago.

“Nobody will remember me as long as I get off, ” he reassured himself, straightening his wrinkled collar and putting up his expensive coat that was thought to amaze those guys in the rural area.

Waiting for nobody to queue in the same line, he slowly carried the luggage and strode out of the carriage. However, when he stretched out his heel, an unexpected hand came close to him. That was a hand from a boy in rag. Bright eyes were particularly conspicuous for a boy with black skin.

“Let me wipe your shoes,” the boy took a wrinkled cloth out of his pocket.

Oliver could feel a sense of pride while being served by the lowly boy, but after finding no extra money to pay for such a service, he kicked off the boy instinctively.

“I will pay you off one day. I will come back as a millionaire,” he shouted at the boy, trying to scare him with anger.

The boy glared at him, watching him jump into a carriage.

“Hartford town,” the boy heard the last voice from him.

Even though the road to his ancestral house was so remote, Oliver wore his mask all the time, worrying that someone recognized him. He was more anxious that laugher at his family would have filled the entire town if someone had discovered his loss of money because of gambling. Therefore, he had to restrain himself to show off his nobility and arrogance.

He did not want to hear the birds chirping in the trees or anything about his return unless he found a box of treasure that his mother told him before her death.

“That is my hope,” he said to himself pleasantly, sneering at old buildings, poor men, and dirty land.

When the carriage was close to a shop, he ordered a carter to have a stop.

“Give me five bottles of liquor,” he yelled out, waving at a shopkeeper.

“Where are you from?” the shopkeeper handed him some bottles of wine and asked in a humble voice.

Giving no responses and grabbing them quickly, he directed the carter to go forward. The shopkeeper stood still, puzzled, and sighed.

Shortly after the carriage arrived at the shabby ancestral house with an ivy-covered door, the carter woke him up by shaking his arms.

At his sight was everything that he had not seen before but he had to rely on for the rest of his life.

The argument between him and the carter got so loud that a neighbor stuck his head out the window to find out what happened, so he stopped the bargain and paid much more money eventually.

After dealing with it, he stood alone in front of the ivy-covered door, with tears rolling down his cheek. He carefully opened the historic door, only to find objects in the whole room wrapped in heavy spider silk. With great efforts, he spared a clean space in the corner.

Exhausted but hopeless, he pried a bottle of beer to get drunk. After drinking the half glass of beer in one gulp, he spotted a locked box placed under the bed in which his father slept. He rubbed his eyes, considering it an illusion that a drunk man usually had.

However, when he came close to the box, the illusion turned out to be true.

He blew away the dust on it, but he did not know how to open the corroded lock. Suddenly, a strange wind kissing his cheek, the corroded lock turned into iron ashes. Then, he opened it quickly, and searched for the treasure he chased. Unexpectedly, there lied an old photograph, with his father and another female stranger on it.

“That’s a big treasure. My father loves another woman. What a big surprise,” he whimpered, staring at the photograph in his palm.

Bottle after bottle, he drank all, lying in the ground and sleeping. The snores gave the inanimate house a new life. The dizziness caused by alcohol seemed to have a strong chemical reaction with this old mysterious photograph, so gradually he entered a strange dream.

He saw a woman dragged out of the house by a group of strong men. However, his father kept silence. He thought it was his mother, but when he looked closely, it turned out to be the strange woman in the photograph. When the woman was carried to the woodpile, a group of old women were talking about something that he could not understand, and slapping the woman's hair with willow branches.

“She is a widow. How is it possible to have a child? The child must be evil,” one of neighbors shouted at the woman on the woodpile.

“Do you know how the servant got pregnant?” another neighbor came to his father and questioned him.

“It’s impossible,” his father thought of the answer for minutes and said reluctantly.

“It’s impossible,” his father emphasized, with a few tears rolling down his withered face.

It was then that Oliver’s father watched a woman burn to death, but he could do nothing but close his eyes. The murderers searched the village thoroughly from morning to night in order to kill the child, but found nothing. Therefore, they went back home one after another.

On the same evening, his father stayed up all night, watching the old photograph. The next day, Oliver saw all the servants pack their luggage. At another room, Oliver saw his father quarrel with another woman.

However, it was this time that he was surprised to find that it was his mother.

“Honey. I cannot get pregnant. We should have had a divorce. But now I promise I will raise him as our own child,” Oliver’s mother sobbed in front of Oliver’s father.

Oliver’s father came to Oliver’s mother, and gave her a hug.

“But you can only love me. You promised me when we first met,” Oliver’s mother complained.

“You are not my lover. You disclose the secret. You are a bad woman,” Oliver’s father exclaimed.

After hearing these words, Oliver’s mother left the room. Later, Oliver saw his father take a gun out of a drawer, and point his throat with a gun.

Soon, Oliver was dragged out of the dream by a loud voice.

Back to the reality, Oliver found himself a son of a slave. He had no courage to acknowledge it, so he gulped the rest of beer.

Again, he found himself lying at the ground, with a gun in his palm. Oliver’s mother screamed, but soon calmed down because such a shameful thing deserved no broad spread. She quickly cleaned the room, spent hours taking the body to the car, and locked the door with a child in her arms.

“Go now,” his mother ordered the driver. Oliver was the father lying on the trunk, because Oliver’s father was dead, unable to move. When Oliver was lifted by the woman, he saw a light through the gap.

Then Oliver seemed to lose balance, quickly fell into the water, and was pressed down by a big wooden box. Later, darkness covered his sight.

Oliver remembered the well very well because his mother took him there more than once in his childhood, but every time he came near the well, his mother said, “Danger, leave there.” Whenever he asked about his father's whereabouts, his mother always repeated, “You would know one day.”

As his mother described, Oliver’s father was a brave man that was a millionaire but went to the front to kill the enemy. In his dream, he tried his best to piece together the description of his father, and recalled the happy moments when he played games besides the well.

More than once, he confused whether it was in a dream or in reality.

After a while, the cock outside broke the dream by crowing. He woke up, looking at the photograph in his palm, and knowing what he would do next. Those were collecting treasure and bringing his father in the well back home.

As planned, he came to the well and opened it with great strength. There was a smell coming out of the well. As the well was ten meters high, he took a piece of string and prepared to take up his father's body and the treasure he chased.

Down to the well, he saw his a skeleton lying at the wet ground, and a wooden box full of gold. He tied the box and the skeleton, and prepared to start a new life as soon as he got out of the well.

However, the gold was too heavy, and the rope was too fragile to support the weight. He tried to climb out, but the more he struggled, the faster the rope broke.

Again, he felt that he lost balance, and then a heavy box pressed on his chest, making him unable to breathe.

Before long, he lost his breath but his eyes remained open forever.