end of the line ... a fiction

End of the Line


My uncle died in 1998. His name was Horace August Peterson, and he spent his last years in a small town outside Seattle where he lived openly and quietly as a cross-dressing bachelor for the last two decades of his life. Prior to that, he’d spent considerable spare time while otherwise employed by the U.S. Army collecting antiquities, and I don’t mean the kind you find in your grandmother’s attic. These were prize pieces scavenged from the ruins created by the savagery of war, relics of ancient and sometimes lost civilizations about which we know next to nothing, except that they were there and in their glory contributed to the amazing and curious history of mankind.

Unable to decide who should get what of his expansive estate, my indigent brothers and I allowed that the court should make that decision for us. In the end, the court ordered the appointed executors to sell off virtually all the collection, and whoever could afford to purchase items was allowed to bid along with the rest of the collecting world. Perhaps needless to say, virtually everything went on the block, and very few items today remain in the family. Each of the brothers, including myself, in the wake of that sorry spectacle, have been endowed with substantial wealth which subsequent to auction was wisely invested by carefully selected trustees whose knowledge of business and finance is the match of any Wall Street tradesman.

I myself was diagnosed recently with a rare and fatal disease known as late onset progeria. It seems no amount of money was sufficient to stave off the inevitable result of this deleterious affliction, whose diminishments to my person advance daily at an ever quickening pace. Thus, I have decided to divest my life’s ‘winnings’ by giving away small sums of money to large numbers of people simply for the asking.

The funds are held in a local branch of Corporate State Bank in upstate New York and can be withdrawn in amounts up to $1,000.00 a day per person until the entire principal of several million dollars is exhausted. The routing number for the bank is 083000099, and the account number is 651 877 136. If you choose to use electronic banking, the user name is scorpio9, the proper signature image is a sailboat and the password is Xcurve320. If you are unable to access, the branch phone number is 607-235-3133; ask for Mr. Tom Gorman.

“Why not give your money to charity?” you might ask. To be sure, I already have, including including a million dollars in excess taxes to the United States Treasury to help pay down the national debt. What remains, as they used to say in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, is “the people’s”.

One more thing. Since I am near the end of term of this appalling disease, this July-August issue of ragazine.cc will be the last. After six long years we are closing the book. The steadily widening circle of friends has been a joy to watch grow, as much as watching a circle of mushrooms appear overnight under the arborvitae in our castle garden. We hope you’ve enjoyed the changing look and feel from year to year, and that the material we’ve chosen to bring to you will survive a lifetime in your memories. The cyber pages we’ve created will remain ‘live’ for the next 25 years, as we’ve paid Go Daddy in advance to maintain the domain URL and hosting. The material will remain secure -- for the time being, at least.

So, with this final issue, “Sayonara. Adios. Bon jour.”

And thanks for reading.