Ring.
“That’ll be thirteen-sixteen,” Rick Velasquez told a man purchasing some beer and cigarettes once a collected ring from Sonic the Hedgehog went off.
The man gave Rick fifteen dollars for the items guaranteed to internally alter the user inside-out through excessive usage. Rick gave him the change, and a default “have a good one.”
Like every other day, Rick worked at his local Circle K gas station. This was the only job he could find after being turned down by more profitable and respectable businesses. He just wanted a source of personal income as he still relied on his parents.
Mr. Terry was Rick’s authoritarian manager who was in charge of this grueling prison. As Rick’s shift was about to end, the old man shambled towards him.
“Rick,” the grey-haired, wrinkly man said, “Jose just called me and he said that he isn’t going to feel well tomorrow, so I’m going to need you to cover his shifts for the next few days starting tomorrow.”
Rick sighed pitifully as he wanted some of that free time to tend to his college duties.
“Look,” Mr. Terry responded at the reaction, “if you don’t want to clean toilets and stock the restrooms, you can forget about your free jerry-can benefits.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Terry.” Rick left some cash on the table to purchase a lottery ticket he likes to play every day after work. He then grabbed the ticket and left. Of course, he would never expect to win anything grand; he just buys the tickets for fun. His girlfriend, Olivia Wilson, had explained to him the slim chances of winning a jackpot after she had taken a college business statistics class.
Meanwhile, at a state lottery headquarters, an office worker consulted with his supervisors to conceive each ticket’s monetary value. Each form he signs off is considered final and valid according to the Federal Reserves and the U.S. Mint; if someone wins a million dollars, they get precisely the right amount. The office worker wrote the amount on each ticket and signed it off before submitting it to the circulation system.
One point during this tedious task, he scrolled down TikTok as he wrote down some single-digit figures and signed them.
“Of course, another ‘big-bank’ video,” he sighed as he involuntarily wrote an eight sideways on the monetary prize space. He then looked at the signature line, glossing over his numerical error, and signed off the form whose combination would be imprinted on a ticket.
A ticket went through an assembly line for construction and processing. The various ink stamps imprint the same number combination as shown in the “sideways eight” form to that particular ticket. As it was finished, after having been encased in scratching foil material, that ticket ended up in a pile with other tickets that were packed and shipped into a cargo truck. As the cargo truck made its route, that winning ticket arrived at Circle K.
After deeply scrubbing off brown, decrepit streaks on the toilet bowl, Rick had checked out of work. Before he left, he purchased another lottery ticket to scrub the foil away for his cool down ritual. Mr. Terry then came up to Rick to inform him of tomorrow’s tasks.
“Rick, for tomorrow, I want you to clean out the trash bins of our facilities — and clean out the used, washed-up toilet papers from the said bins.”
Rick, feeling uneasy at the notion of picking up bacteria-infested, water-moist toilet paper, had no other way to respond but, “yes sir.”
Rick drove back home around 9 pm to eat his microwaved dinner and play the lottery. He got settled into his space to dine and play as soon as he set up his folding table. He then got a quarter and started scratching and scratching and scratching the tiny particles of foil away as he progressively saw the numbers clearer and clearer.
“Oh boy,” Rick told himself sarcastically, “I wonder how much I won today.”
He checked his phone to reveal today’s winning numbers and its monetary prize. All six numbers online matched exactly the six numbers on the lottery ticket. Monetary prize: $∞.
“Huh?” Rick inquired at the most bizarre discovery of his life. He checked his results twice. Three times. Four times. The adrenaline escalated in his body. He could not believe it.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. Then with a smile, “no way!”
Olivia Wilson was studying for her business management exam. She intensively concentrated on the small, precise details.
Opportunity costs always occur during trade. There is always a cost each time Country A trades with Country B. Why? Because there ain’t such thing as a free lunch—
Bzz! Bzz!
The phone had buzzed Olivia into reality. Ricky-bear with a pink heart emoji.
“Hey,” Olivia picked up enthusiastically, “what’s up, Ricky-bear?”
“Livvie, you’ll never believe what happened,” Rick announced.
“Well, what is it?”
“I was just playing a lottery ticket I got from my job, and you’ll never guess what I won.”
After making inaccurate guesses, Rick finally told her.
“Infinity? Are you high, Rick?”
“No, but my worth will be. You may find it hard to believe, but I can prove it to you. Say, our second-year anniversary is coming up, how about if I treat you somewhere nice?” inquired Rick.
Rick and Olivia had been seated in the middle of the dining lobby at Chez Fric, where the lights are dimmed to a point where it complements the tone of the red wine carpeting and pearlescent white table cloth. They sat and ate bread and drank water while they waited for their main course.
“You really had to pick an expensive place didn’t you?” asked Olivia gleefully.
“Of course, I can pay for it,” Rick claimed. “So, you said that you wanted to see proof of my winnings, right?” He opened the Chase bank app on his phone to prove his unbelievable claims. “Here it is.”
“Lemme see,” Olivia grabbed his phone and took a close inspection of the figure. To her shock, the “available balance” displayed as $ ∞. She took a whole minute to process the discovery so unimaginable. Her denial in such a claim slowly turned into excitement as she told her boyfriend, “Wow. That’s amazing!”
“I know, right? I have so much spending power now, thanks to my newfound, bottomless wealth. I mean, I could try spending it all tonight.” All of a sudden, the wildest idea chimed into Rick’s head.
He got up on his chair, grabbed his empty wine glass and a spoon, and banged them together while exclaiming, “Hey everyone! May I have your attention?”
Diners and servers froze and turned their heads towards Rick while Olivia bowed her head lower closer to the table.
“I just won an infinite amount of money! As a way to celebrate my newfound wealth, I am paying 100% of all of your bills!”
The crowd of diners went into an exultant roar of cheers and applause.
“And I will be tipping every server their week’s worth of earnings!”
Glasses and ceramic hit the floor, shattered, as the servers cheered at that bold announcement.
“Rick,” Olivia grabbed his attention, uncertain, “are you sure you can do this?”
“Why yes, I can, Livvie! I can do anything. Hell, I’ll even quit my job! Now let us enjoy whatever meal we want and celebrate with the most expensive, exquisite wine that Chez Fric has to offer.”
Having left his Circle K job a few days ago, Richard brought Olivia to a heavily commercialized mall on a date. Store after store. Shop after shop. At their hearts’ content, they got whatever they wanted. A PS5, an Xbox Series X, exquisite Sephora products, vineyard vines, Victoria Secret bralettes, and Forever 21 apparel. Not once did Richard ever had to worry about declining “available balance” numbers. Not once did he even bother checking the price tag; he paid for every single thing he and his girlfriend wanted with extreme confidence that no other shopper had. They both returned to his car as they tested out their strength with hefty shopping bags.
As Olivia had placed her five bags onto the trunk of Rick’s Nissan sedan, the back of her mind had started to snack on itself a bit. She had spent quality time with her beloved boyfriend of two years. However, she had this fear that her beloved one is preoccupied with his money, and a newly bought 2800 V-Bucks card, rather than his relationship with her.
But then again, she really wanted the expensive color palette from Sephora, those cute pink Lululemon leggings, and that cute bikini set from the PINK store attached to the Victoria’s Secret; those were the things she was saving up for as a barista at the on-campus Starbucks — despite most of her income going towards her tuition as a part of her work-study. Nevertheless, she still had a sense of disgracefulness situating around her head, spinning around slowly.
Why do I feel awful? It’s not like I stole anything, but why do I feel this way? Why am I even a barista, if he is able to pay for everything? I put up a year’s worth of asshole customers for this?
Yet, she loved Rick in such a way that she had to support him regardless of how troubled she was trying to wrap around his wealth in her head. Deep in her heart, she loved her boyfriend in the same way she loved her teddy bear her mother gave on her sixth birthday — having passed away of cancer a month later.
“Wow, I never would have thought I’d be satisfied by how much stuff we bought. I’m so glad to spend time shopping with you,” Olivia proclaimed. She then embraced Richard for a kiss.
“Um yeah,” Richard said as he felt the infatuation flooding into his mind after untapping an amount of passion through his expenditures, “I sure enjoyed dispensing all of that money.”
It was then when Richard had another, most extraordinary idea he’s had yet.
“I just had a bright idea, Livvie. I am going to buy out the entire mall and all of its goods and services.”
“Ricky-bear,” Olivia pulled back, “I don’t know. I mean, I enjoyed spending time with you and all, but don’t you think that buying out the entire mall is a little too much for us?”
“No, Livvie. I am buying out the property, and I will pay for every single good and service this mall has to offer for everyone.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think it might work well for the econ—”
“Livvie. Oh, my sweet Livvie. What could go wrong with freebies? I mean, I am sick and tired of having to worry about how much money I send whenever I go to commercialized areas — and so are other people. Suppose I wanted to have a new pair of Converses. In that case, I could have a new pair of Converses without having to worry about these ‘trade-offs’ that you probably learned in that economics class you took. I think I’d be doing the consumers a favor.”
“Rick, I—”
Richard then put his finger on Olivia’s mouth, leaned towards her, stared at her natural brown eyes, and then they went for another kiss.
A designer Louis Vuitton bag, sunglasses, a first-class roundtrip ticket to Honolulu, a presidential suite at the Hilton Resort, a BMW Series 7 rental, and another BMW rental after having crashed the first one; a janitor who worked at Richardo’s mall didn’t pay a single penny for those experiences when he and his family decided to go on a three-week-long vacation. It had been several months since Richardo bought out the entire mall and bought out every single conglomerate and company in existence. Every day was Black Friday everywhere for 100% off deals. No one ever had to spend money on something that they needed or wanted. People simply just had to check out at registers and take the purchased goods — all paid for by Richardo. The “too expensive” excuse became obsolete like the bartering system.
Forbes Magazine, now owned by Richardo himself, listed the owner as the most valuable person on the list, surpassing Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates by countless amounts of money. As a result of his fortune, he had moved into a lavish, Playboy-like mansion, where he lived like Jay Gatsby. In his grand living room, Richardo was sitting on a Fifth Saks Avenue-crafted white leather sofa watching The Office on his 4K UHD TV.
Ding ding dong. Ding ding dong.
The Ring™ doorbell rang; it was Olivia. Having greeted Olivia in the front and guided her to the living room, Richardo offers a proposal to watch Dwight attempt to manage the office as a wealthy couple.
“So, you remember that The Office was taken out of Netflix in favor of that streaming service no one wants?” asked Richardo. “Well, I bought out all the media conglomerates in existence — and yes, that includes Disney. Because of that, I was able to combine all of the streaming services in existence into one. Imagine a streaming service that has every single TV show and movie in existence. Every single episode — including deleted scenes. No ads. All free. You can finally watch The Office uncensored and with deleted scenes; you can finally hear Michael drop the f-bomb after he drove his car into a lake. Anyways, I call it Netulu Dismount Plus Maxcock Prime.”
“Rick, I would like to talk to you about something,” Olivia voiced her concern.
“I go by Richardo now. I gotta keep up with my lavish lifestyle. But anyways, what’s up?” He sat back down on his lavish sofa as he held the remote
“I don’t think that you winning that lottery was a good idea. I can see how worthless everything is. I feel overwhelmed by how you changed; you weren’t the same guy who I used to date. Mainly, I am seeing the negative effects at which your wealth is hurting the economy.”
“What economy? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that there is finally one unified, free streaming service.”
“That’s the problem. You don’t know your priorities, nor do you see the problem that this money is causing. If only you were still working in that gas station.”
There was a pause. Richardo turned off the TV, steadily set his remote down, stood up and turned towards Olivia in an aggressive stare.
“Excuse me?” Richardo asked as if he was offended, “I don’t think that I’d be better off in that cheap-ass corner store with that cheap-ass boss. I am tired of having to rely on that cheap job and dealing with my cheap parents who don’t support me that much. I am tired of feeling like a nobody, Olivia. With that said, I certainly don’t give a shit about the damn economy you keep telling me about. Is this what you want? To belittle me?”
Feeling a sense of a stinging sensation in her throat and an unwelcome warmth in her face, Olivia nevertheless stood her ground. “Rick, you are not the same person who I knew two years ago. I don’t feel—”
“It’s Richardo, Olivia. Honestly, why did you ever become a business major? Is it so that you can get into my business and tell me to be poor again? You can’t insult me by telling me to go back to being more poor and inferior compared to others. Compared to you.”
“You really think that I chose to be a business major because I wanted to hurt your ego? It’s because I wanted to be successful. Not because I wanted to make you feel small. I wanted to find a secure job so that we could—” she suddenly paused briefly as a sense of sadness trickled into her throat and eyes, “support our dream family.”
“I just love that you’re implying that I couldn’t even support myself. Well, screw that! I made it, Livvie. I finally got what I—”
“Just stop,” Olivia abruptly interrupted, tears flowed fluidly, “Don’t you call me that anymore. If that’s what you want, then I believe that we shouldn’t have a future together anymore.” She turned her back against Richardo and marched out the door.
Realizing what he had done, Richardo followed her. “Olivia, no. Don’t do this to me.”
As she went out the door, Olivia strode towards her car as she scrunched up her red face trying to block out pain.
Richardo followed her.
That sadness manifested by Olivia transferred into Richardo himself as he felt that pain seeping into his chest and face as he shouted at her, “Don’t do this to me!”
She drove off out of the driveway and out of his sight.
All the struggle to put up with college work and Mr. Terry at the same time. All the humility he endured in front of Olivia’s father and stepmother and herself in a two-story house. All of the fond memories that he and Olivia had for two years of dating. All for nothing — but for pain and rage that seeped into Richardo’s head. He had lost someone.
Richardo kicked the front door to the wall beside it and stormed his way to the TV. He grabbed the remote and threw it at the screen — having become broken and disjointed. He swung the nearby furniture around him, ultimately destroying everything that no longer had value to him. He proceeded to head to the garage where he kept his two unused red jerry cans of gasoline. He went back to the kitchen/living room area, where he doused all carpets, curtains, cupboards, and cartons of opened Amazon boxes. It was then that he took out a matchbox and lit a flame.
“She left me. I wanted to impress her. I wanted her to love me. And this is what I get for making everything free.” Richardo dropped the match.
The fire spread rapidly when the match hit the ground. Richardo watched the insides burn down to his satisfaction. He proceeded to leave via the front — until the flames caught up with him by burning down some beams of wood, blocking his exit.
“Oh god,” he told himself, “what have I done?”
He then realized that he was trapped from all sides of this hell. Once he decided to burn it all down, there was no going back as all sales were final.
Acknowledgements
Throughout the Spring 2021 semester, we had yet another virtual semester due to obvious public health reasons that we are all too tired of. Zooms. Blackboard Collaborates. Lagging camera footages and technical difficulties. These are all the things we had put up with since the pandemic started.
I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to take a fiction creative writing class where it provided some form of escapism from all the messes of this world. I had read stories of the fantasy, horror, drama, etc. This was a class where it enabled me an opportunity to figure out how to distill a plot as effectively as possible.
I would like to thank Dr. Stephanie Schoellman and her creative writing fiction class for helping and inspiring me to craft this story the way it is right in front of you. Especially during workshops, I never felt that they ever shot down my ideas nor anything that suggests that the story sucked. I truly appreciate the praise and constructive criticism that I’ve taken with a grain of salt to incorporate onto this final draft in this blog.
I would also like to thank my parents for funding me in my academic ventures and helping me get to where I am today — especially to where I have an opportunity to write such a polished piece.
And to all my friends and family for supporting me.
And most importantly, you, for reading this post. 🙂
Also go check out this “Genius-annotated” version of this story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dWG-3qPotv67iAiU8Tq6PdD8HoQImdy15dA-7y4k5LQ/edit
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