Good News (An original short story)

On the way from the doctor, Doug listened to music in the car. The music brought him into a meditative state, and he began to think not about the doctor's words, but about how, elusively, of all possible options, Providence wanted to bring him to this point of being, and, despite many years of hard work, into this insignificant point of well-being. Indeed: "honor and profit lie not in one sack." The events of his life flashed like old rags layered on top of each other. Some memories lingered, and, Doug having pulled them out for a quick view, threw it back into the stack.

Some of his acquaintances become rich: some in the sale of real estate, some in the trade, some doing God knows what. And he? He still lives in an old house, which he and his wife bought many years ago, and which now, after the departure of the youngest son, feels empty.

Doug remembered the old granny who had lived in this house some twenty years before they bought it. The wife knew a fortune-teller who said that this granny buried a treasure in the house's backyard before she died. "A casket wrapped up in a cloth and some jewels in the casket." According to the fortune teller, the grandmother had no children, while she was at odds with the rest of her relatives and did not want them to get these jewels.

Although Doug did not believe the fortune-tellers: he would never have put money on them and would not have sworn in court, all the same, the little thought, like a flashing light of a cigarette, smoldered in his brain. "After all, damn it, there must be at least one chance in life! Plus, it doesn't cost anything. Just dig it up - and that's that! "

Although he didn't want to do it in front of his wife. The fuss will begin, scrutiny, valuable instructions (as if she knew how and where to dig), and besides, she'll tittle-tattle it to someone. Gossips would spread, everyone would poke their noses in his business at once. No, he should do this alone, just like during the period of their courtship, when everybody, including Molly, was upset with him over his alleged stinginess. Doug didn't shower Molly with flowers or candy. But when the bank told her that he had paid off her car, she understood that he did not like to waste money on nonsense.
Doug recalled with some anger about the lecture on personal growth when the arrogant coach blew smoke up everybody's ass that it was all about your relationships in the family. Once relationships improve, the money will come. Bullshit! Doug, who had stopped at a traffic light at that time, struck the horn with force. The car hummed, and Doug saw the face of the previous car's driver turning towards him in the left side mirror. He waved apologetically to the driver.

Sure, the family relationship! They had everything okay in the family, thank God, with his wife and children. Only money, damn money!

Doug parked his car, walked into the house, tossed his keys in the hallway on the nightstand in front of the mirror.

"Is it you?" Molly called out from the kitchen, "What did the doctor say?"

Doug didn't answer. He straightened his hair, walked through the hallway to the kitchen, sat down on a chair.

"Why are you silent?" repeated Molly, "didn't you hear what I said?"

"I heard," Doug replied on an exhale.

"Well?"

"He said that my sugar is higher than normal and that I should stop eating sweets."

"Even dessert?"

Doug nodded and looked sadly at the candies on the plate in front of him.

"Exactly. He said that I was very close to the initial stage of diabetes. And that I have to lose weight, and so on."

Molly stepped away from the stove, sat down in the chair next to Doug, and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Doc is right about the weight, of course. It would not hurt if you lost ten pounds or so. You know that."

Doug sighed and moved his neck.

"I have two news," she turned the conversation to another topic, "Which one to start with, good or bad?"

"With the bad one."

"My brother writes from Chicago that my mom doesn't feel well. Let's go?

"No, I won't. You go, of course."

"And if?" Molly pressed the napkin to her lips, trying to hide trembling lips and pre-lacrimal facial muscles.

"Well, when the "if" happens, then I'll come. But, you know, I don't like to constrain people. It is enough that you will live with your brother."

"But how will you be here all alone?"

"Don't worry; I'll manage. Any other news?"

"And the other one," Molly smiled somewhat artificially, trying to overcome the sadness with amusement, "I talked to a fortune-teller."

"And?"

"Well, she said that soon you'll have good news."

"I?" asked Doug, "his mouth twisted in a feigned grimace of disbelief. "How much did you pay her?"

"Nothing. I took her to the airport, and once we got there, right before getting out of the car, she told me that soon you would have good news. But, strangely, out of the entire family, she said something specifically about you."

Doug snorted.

"I don't believe these fortune-tellers." At the same time, he thought. "How did she sense that I'm going to dig? What a radar!"

A week passed before Molly bought her ticket and packed bags. Then, before leaving, she filled both the refrigerator in the kitchen and the freezer in the garage with food and gave her husband long and detailed instructions on how and what to cook.

"Okay, I'll figure it out," he waved it off, "not a boy. Let's go, or you'll be late for the plane."

---

From a telephone conversation with his wife, it became clear that the mother-in-law did not feel well, but it was still a long way to the "if".

It was time to get started.

Doug estimated the treasure worth at around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars - the money is not so huge, but if used prudently, they could serve him and his wife well for the rest of their days, and even something could remain for the grandchildren.

There were several fruit trees and a small shed for necessities in the backyard. The yard was small, about seventeen by ten meters. And it seemed to Doug that digging it up was not particularly difficult. However, after working for an hour and a half, he was tired, sweating like a Hottentot in the Sahara, his heart was pounding crazy, he was breathing fast, his back ached, and the hole dug did not seem deep. Doug stuck the shovel into the loose soil, dragged himself to the house, and collapsed onto the sofa. That day, he did nothing.

But lying in bed in the morning, looking at the old bedroom furnishings, he began to think that it would be necessary to replace the TV, which would allow watching videos from YouTube, and other channels, buy a new bed and a chandelier and repaint the walls and ceiling since in some places the paint was peeling.

Doug dressed quickly, went out into the backyard, and grabbed the shovel. It was challenging for several days. There was a black earth layer on top, then a layer of gray sand, and then clay. Here he stopped. Granny would hardly have buried the jewels so deep. Then, falling from fatigue on the sofa, he told himself that such experiments could end badly at his age. But, gradually, he got used to it and began to increase the digging time.

Several times the shovel bumped into something hard. However, it turned out to be a stone or a chunk of metal or a plastic each time. He spat, cursed the fortune-teller, but the cigarette butt of hope continued to smolder. "How stupid it would be," he thought, "if he'd finish digging just when the treasure is literally at the distance of a shovel blade."
Soon he finished all that was left in the house to eat, except for pasta, frozen hot dogs, and cans of tuna, but he did not want to go to the store. The one hundred and fifty thousandth treasure was so clearly persisted in his imagination that he seemed to be able to touch it.

Once, some intruders came - girls from a nearby Pentecostal church. They were not embarrassed that they saw only bare to the waist part of Doug, stuck out of the ground.

"I'm planting a tree here," he explained. "You know, a man must build a house, plant a tree and give birth to a son," he smiled apologetically. "The part about the son and a house I fulfilled, but I didn't plant a tree just yet."

"Otherwise, they'll think that I am burying a corpse!"

"Everyone should pray to our Lord - Jesus Christ," the girls answered, clearly a memorized text.

Cursing inside, Doug reassured them that he had already found Christ but decided not to push the envelope and allowed them to throw their brochures into his mailbox.

Doug had already dug up to the fence. He was left not more than ten cubic feet when his wife called and said that his mother-in-law got better, and in two days, he would have to pick Molly from the airport.

---

Now he lifted the last cubic feet. "Lord, what an idiot I am!" he thought, sitting on the edge of the ditch and putting his feet into the hole, "why the hell was I doing this? Damn it! "

Not wanting to hear ridicule from his wife, and in general, trying to bury the memory of the experiment, he diligently leveled the ground in the backyard. "I'll say that I removed the weeds if she'd ask," he thought and summed it up with sadness, "apparently, wealth ain't for me. How could I even fall for this?"

---

Frustrated, he sat in the doctor's hallway and involuntarily shook his head, thinking about how he could believe the damned fortune-teller with her "good news"?

"Doug, you pleasantly surprised me" Dr. Lynch smiled happily, reading the paper with his test results. You've lost fifteen pounds so quickly. You look great. And your sugar is perfectly normal!"