5A1: Rationed

Michael Darnby woke into a new day to the sound of heavy rain lashing against his window. The world seemed a cold and unwelcoming place. He stepped on paper when he slid out of bed into cold air but only with one foot. From that brief contact, he knew that he had not stepped onto a carpet of money. There was just one £5 note stuck to the sole of his right foot. It was not the untold riches of the newspaper picture, but it was better than a slap in the eye with a wet fish.
   Darnby persevered with the Treasure Trawler at intervals through the day. He was no richer when he went to bed, leaving the circuit diagram with its glued-on accessories on the dining table.
   He found a fairly new fiver at the Output Gate the following morning. The same thing happened the next day and the next. Some cosmic rationing system for luck had decided that he was worth £5 per day.
   Still, it was tax-free and it was an apparently guaranteed income that required no special effort on his behalf. Thirty-five pounds per week would buy quite a few luxuries until inflation turned a fiver into small change.
   Life could be worse, he told himself as he wondered whether to dash out and spend his accumulated £25 or save up for something decent.
   Decisions, decisions, he thought with a grin. Money brings you nothing but trouble.

END of this route through the story.

In Conclusion

I wrote this short story in September of 1980, before the computer technology needed to create a hypertext story was available to the home user.

Fifteen years later, in September of 1995, there were much fancier hypertext programs on the market than the one which I wrote [using QBasic 4.5, for anyone interested in that sort of thing] to display the hypertext version of the story, but what really counts is the content of the story, not how it looks, and the author chosing to make the effort to go all the way with his vision.

The story is featured in the second volume of my collected short stories [first edition 1997] and this HTML version was created in January, 2000.

This is the end.

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Created for Romiley Literary Circle by Henry T. Smith Productions, 10 SK6 4EG, G.B.
sole © Philip Turner, 1980.