FOMO

“It isn’t Munch, so here, you can have it!”

“Munch appreciated!” I exclaim as I take the bag.

“He did until FOMO hit!” said the Prevost.

I should have known better, but when you starve, your hands have a life of their own. I rummage through Munch’s beat-up travel bag. Burglary tools, identity papers with a picture that looks like me were thrown in with a stale half-eaten lunch! Such trash! Munch left a rotten apple in his bag. I’m so ravenous that I take a bite.

Long ago, when I worked, I thought I was happy. I never missed out on anything. Now everything is so basic. Munch was why I was never hungry. That's why I gave him that nickname. We were the fastest friends with the most slippery hands ever!

That Prevost. He was always looking for an opportunity, making so much money that he became a pillar of the community! The police would look in now and again—more like never.

Munch knew better than to mess around with the Prevost. Didn't he? Now I’m in this dingy jail with the one bully you could never get away from. All on account of Munch? Unbelievable.

“Why am I in your jail?” I yell as I eat the apple core.

The Prevost bangs my cell door bars with his baton.

“Why did you do it?” he demands.

“Do what?”

“You know!”

“It isn’t Munch?”

“Exactly.”

I sigh. “It wasn’t me. So let me go.”

“Munch appreciated it,” the Prevost continued. “You said so yourself.”

“I was joking,” I reply. “Much appreciated is what I meant. Because you gave me this bag and what it contained. I am hungry.”

“For a rotten apple?”

“How was I to know what was in the bag?”

“Exactly.”

#

The sun was coming up. The Prevost was gone, and I had barely slept on the floor. There was nothing in the cell but my dreams, nightmares of killing and being killed with concrete for a bed, my arms for a pillow. Every part of me ached.

I ran my fingers along the seams inside Munch's bag to gather crumbs. Then, I cleaned my crumb-laden fingernails with the toothpick that always hung from my mouth. A tiny, neat pile of dirt and crumbs was now by the cell door.

Rats! There weren't any. Was my crumb pile too small?

But all was not lost. I found a secret compartment in the bag. A tiny notebook with a scribbled last will:

I solemnly swear that I, Murphy J. Donaldson, have bequeathed all my personal belongings to whoever finds this bag.

There was no signature. The Prevost witnessed it.

Speaking of which, the Prevost must have been watching me the whole time! He sidles up to me, trampling my crummy pile with one of his hob-nailed boots, to reach through the bars to hand me a pen.

“Why not be a rat-fink and sign those papers you found?” he says with a grin.

“I’m not Murphy J. Donaldson!” I protest.

“You will be if you sign!”

‘Then what?” I demand.

“I’ll let you go!”

“What? So you could arrest me again for making a false statement? Or having false identity papers? Or worse."

“Suit yourself!”

#

I look out the grimy jail window. Ever since the crash of ‘24, everyone has been scraping by. Hungry mostly. The army of lost souls is queuing for soup bowls down the street.

An expensive suit catches my eye. Out there on the road, he’s talking to the Prevost. They get into an argument. Then, the Prevost does a tango with the suit and pretzels him. The soup line hobos hardly look up! It's like it’s made to order. That'll be a head plant, a side order of sidewalk, and a complimentary half-cheek concrete shave to go!

Treads squeal to a beat, and then voilà, two men dancing off the stairs and into my view, full of insults and threats.

The suit is thrown into my cell. Sheesh! This jail floor is chock-a-block with empty cells. Why do I have to put up with...

“Munch?”

He’s standing there with folded arms. A picture of rumpled excess. But he’s not talking. He’s smirking. He thinks he can get out of here or something. Kablooey to that!

The Prevost tosses me a key for Munch's handcuffs. I uncuff him and throw everything back.

“That suit is to die for!” I say to the Prevost. "Where did he get it?"

Munch straightened his tie and smoothed his suit with his hands. “You don’t know the half of it," he said.

I hold out the travel bag to Munch. “Yours, I take it?”

“You take it!” he laughs.

“Why?”

“I’m not telling you!”

“Then why are you in this cell with me?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “We’re both waiting.”

“For what?”

“You!”

#

I get these headaches now—so much more than before. Time passes. Slowly.

The Prevost is playing solitaire on the dirty floor. I want to be in that soup line so badly. Enough of these charades already!

“Let us both out!” I scream, shivering, even though I'm not cold.

The Prevost didn't even look up from his card game. “Not until you sign!”

“I can’t sign those papers! Give me something else to sign!”

Then he gets a sly look on his face.

“Why do you care about what happens to Munch? You two are in cahoots! You’re both hiding something from me! Deal me in, or I swear I’m just getting started!”

Munch pipes up. “We had a deal!” he yells. “This schmuck is no concern of yours!”

“Then he’s your schmuck! Get him to sign!”

I’m going out of my mind. “Half of nothing is nothing!” I rage.

#

You can read all about it if you can afford to. I get a newspaper when someone is done with it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Munch wouldn't have liked that.

From this prison window. I can see so much more than before—an actual prison yard. And glory be! Real police and three square meals a day!

Heaven. Who could ask for more?