MY GREEN FANTASY
by
Peter Cloud Panjoyah

Josie had tried to forget about the money she’d put into “her secret little investment” because she didn’t want to count on it. She had learned, against her inclinations, to strike a balance inside her mind between hope and skepticism around these internet opportunities. The best way she knew to let go was to never get lost down the “pretty-picture pathways” as her husband Walt would say, to not put too much energy into what she might do with potential earnings, and to not talk about any programs’ prospects with her friends in town, or especially with Walt.

Whenever she got a little ahead, she’d keep her eyes open for a recommendation from any of a half dozen trusted program-combers in her cybercircle. About a year previously she’d made her most recent input into something similar to a “high yield investment program” called MyGreenFantasy. She’d had several running concurrently by then. Here it was a year later – and none of them had paid out, though all still seemed viable on the surface of things.

On this bluebird spring day in late May, Josie sipped at her hot cuppa and logged in to the MGF Members’ Forum, where participants discussed the program’s progress and spouted the spectrum of speculation from bitter cynicism to tail-thumping, enthusiastic cheerleading. She noticed a new entry in the ‘MGF Announcements’section, and clicked down to open the folder.

Josie’s heart began to race, but it wasn’t due to her morning caffeine jolt. She felt herself go cold all over as her hand reflexively gripped the mouse. Uppercase letters stared back at her from the screen: PAYOUT COMMENCEMENT. She sat there for a few moments, staring hard at the letters, as if they might change to something else if she looked away for an instant or moved too quickly. After several long moments, with shaking fingers she clicked the link.

“We are pleased to inform MGF members who have donated at least $100 into the program prior to May 1, 2007 that payouts have begun, effective today. All participants in this group should check their back offices as soon as possible to verify that funding to their SafeCashNow accounts has occurred. Those who have been paid need merely to log in to these accounts to note the appropriate earnings. Best wishes to all who have stayed with us through thick and thin, we have prevailed and your patience has been rewarded.

Any questions should be entered at the support link provided in your back offices. Again, our most heartfelt congratulations to all recipients.

Sincerely,
Hank Bennett
MGF Administrator”

Breathing hard, Josie opened a new tab in her browser and surfed over to SafeCashNow, got into her account and clicked ‘My Balance’. When she saw the numbers facing her, tiny figures relative to the twenty inch diameter LCD window she peered into for too many hours every day, she rocked back in her chair so hard she nearly fell over backwards, throwing her arm back quickly overhead for counterbalance. Days later, she swore to her best friend Pat that the numbers she saw on the screen in that moment appeared to be rimmed with fire.

Grabbing the phone on the corner of her desk, she yanked up the receiver and punched out a flurry of numbers, her index finger a blur as it zipped around the keypad.
A deep voice answered the first ring.

“Walt Ridge speaking.”

“Waltham,” began Josie, and her voice pitched itself an octave lower than normal as she spoke her husband’s full name, something she did only in moments that really mattered to her. “Waltham? I just found out that one of my internet investment programs paid out. Something’s finally worked, I can’t believe it. I am shaking, Walt. I’m afraid to even tell you over the phone how much money I have in my SafeCashNow right now. But Walt, it’s a lot, I’ll tell you how much when I see you…can I come meet you for lunch, at Tina’s maybe?”

“Josie,” Walt returned, extending the ‘e’ sound at the end of her name. “Josie, these things are money-grubbing scams, please, let’s not go off half-cocked here. They probably are spinning up a nice yarn to suck more money out of old ladies and pretty-picture people. I’m sorry but I really doubt what you’re telling me.”

Taking the bait, Josie angrily exclaimed in a wordless grunt. “For God’s sake, Walt, e-currency account totals can’t be made up! It’s the same as reading your bank account balance online. And I am telling you I have many more numbers in a row in my SafeCashNow account than I did three days ago. Many more. “

“I don’t know, Jos, I don’t know.” Walt let out a long, slow breath. He considered himself a realistic man, never getting too high or too low across the event horizons of his life. He’d been employed for sixteen years at Burns and Quick accounting firm, and his position as senior tax accountant was predictable, even and without the drama he so judged in the tales of his friends’ career upheavals. From life-changing business overhauls and buyouts to teapot tempest office politics, he’d congratulated himself often at having escaped it all, assuming that could not be accidental.

“Fine! Don’t believe me. I’ll find someone else to celebrate with.” She slammed down the phone and burst into tears.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Oh my God, Josie, hoooooow much did you say?” Pat’s eyes were staring so far ahead of their sockets some part of Josie wondered if they might plop into the bowl of soup in front of her.

“Four hundred and forty thousand,” Josie said, lovingly wrapping her lips around each word. “I bought eight shares with an intended return of fifty-five thou each. Across time, I spent $800 to receive that amount.”

“But….that’s not possible!” Pat slurped her French onion soup. “Josie…no stock or banking venture in the world gives that kind of return.”

“Oh yes they do!” Josie exclaimed, then took a deep breath and continued, “But this is the first one, as far as I know, that has actually succeeded in doing what they say they will do. They call them Reverse Pension Plans.

“MyGreenFantasy is just one of many on the ‘net today. The so-called “Trust Partners” purchase a pension contract in your name, and instead of the person being paid when a normal pension policy would mature after age 67, they somehow work it so the future amount when you DO turn 67 is mortgaged now, and you get paid when a certain number of contracts have been signed, usually in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Somehow they use the contracts as collateral, and leverage them. After that, the nuts’n’bolts get hazy for me.”

Pat dropped her spoon into her bowl with a dramatic clank, and stared at her girlfriend across the restaurant table. “Well, it’s all gobbledygook to me, the whole thing. Jos, it just seems like this money dropped on you from the sky. What are you going to do with it all?”

“Honestly, Pat, I haven’t even let myself think that through yet, not very far anyway. It’s how I keep myself sane whenever I put any money into anything on the web.” Josie looked thoughtful for a minute. She felt almost swollen, as if she were three times her usual size. Is this how it feels to have power in the world, she mused, caught momentarily in the lofty branches of a daydream she’d been delaying for far too long.

What did she want to do, now that she could do almost anything? The one fantasy she allowed herself, and it was more of a general placeholder to her unspun dreams, was the delicious thought that she could now use this windfall as a springboard to do anything she felt like doing and not have to consider whether she could “afford it” or not.

In that moment, she recalled an admin of a program she kept tabs on via conference calls repeating a mantra that “money is a mindless force seeking direction”. Now that she had access to a goodly chunk of that force at her beck and call, what did she desire, how did she want to direct the flow?

She knew she wanted to give some away…that went without saying. She was pretty sure she would help out her mother who was still driving that 1981 Aries K that had way too many thousands on its engine. Her nephew Rafael could use a hand paying for “elective” surgery on the ingrown toenails that were preventing him from walking properly. And the local low-income housing nonprofit she supported with her volunteer time was in desperate need of funds to keep afloat and help young families into homes they could not otherwise afford.

But what did she want for herself? That was the question she’d no idea how to answer at the moment. “Girlfriend, I’m going to just have to sit with that very good question you’ve posed. It’s a nice dilemma to have, though, don’tcha think?”

After lunch, Josie rushed home, for she needed to write SafeCashNow and obtain a debit card to most easily access her earnings. She felt light-headed. No longer would she have to work odd jobs she hated to have to do, jobs that ate her time and kept her from pouring her energy into creative pursuits like writing and painting, things she loved to do but found she just didn’t have the time or mojo to give these days. No longer would she and Walt have to rent and continually defer to their landlord when she complained and shilly-shallied every time they wanted to upgrade their living space. They could own something now, without much trouble. They could even buy something in the country, a long held vision that Josie and Walt felt was out of their reach for the nonce.

Josie was still buzzing internally, visions like baby shoots sucking in long gone sunlight springing up across her psyche when Walt came through the door that evening. “So how’s my beautiful millionairess, have you catered us a celebratory meal at a fancy restaurant backroom? Shall we invite the vicar?” he joked, deciding on his commute home that he would lighten things up a bit, rather than tread too heavily on his partner’s pipe dreams – he did realize that such whimsy kept one going on the straight and narrow if one didn’t take them too seriously.

Josie put him on ‘ignore’, pretending she didn’t hear him as she scribbled on an artist sketchpad, feet up on the couch. She was determined to not let Walt’s denial divert in any way this sea change in her life’s direction. No longer would she be or feel subject to her husband’s stranglehold on the flow of their lives together – opportunity was hers for the taking now.

She was making lists. For the last hour or so, she’d been writing down everything she wanted or had ever thought of wanting for as long as she could remember. Clothing styles she’d never tried, musical instruments she thought of studying and buying, classes and workshops she would take to further her personal growth. Countries she’d like to visit. On and on, her list spiraled across the page like so many fast growing weeds, arrows pointing here and there with scribbled notes in the sidebars, bubbles of sub-ideas protruding from main themes like sudden flowers.

“Josie, on your way to the school tomorrow, would you pick up that fuel filter at NAPA? I don’t want to have to pay more for it when I take in the truck, the dealer always jacks their parts prices to the sky.”

“I’m not going to the school anymore, Walt,” Josie said in a clipped tone, not looking at him, her hand still traversing the page before her, jotting. “In fact, I’m not going to need to work at any of my stupid jobs again. No more dumping sloppy joes on Styrofoam plates for ungrateful adolescents. No more trimming hedges and lawn edging for women in white visors and striped skirts. No more dumb jokes from crappy supervisors who talk to my chest. Never. Again!!!” she exclaimed victoriously.

Several moments spiraled silently as Walt stared down at her from the landing, mouth open to speak but no sound emerging.

“Soooooo,” she said, finally looking up at him defiantly,”you’ll probably want to pick up that filter yourself.”