Hapiness and Money

Rafael Bildirici

Final paper

Happine$$

It was a Monday. It started on the platform of the Bleaker Street subway terminal. For 25 years Amir was sitting behind a cash register selling yesterdays newspaper for less than half the usual fee of 25 cents. I’m not here to put down Amirs living but it wasn’t hard to say that he had seen better days in his home country of Afghanistan. Amir was forced to move out of his home when the Russians invaded and sent him packing. A once highly respected doctor was now selling dirty magazines and stale pretzels for a living, a fairly hard life to adjust to for anyone. Little did Amir know that the choice he was going to be forced to make was a lot harder than any other decision which would come his way.

After the usual 15 minute wait for the train, Amir was ready to go home to see his wife and newly born child. As he read his newspaper and sipped his black coffee the F train came to a screeching halt and every light in the train immediately shut. These things don’t usually happen so Amir began to worry. Since he was underground he was not able to reach anyone from his cell phone, so he was forced to wait for someone or something to help him. What seemed like hours went by when finally a man covered in black clothes and a white hood approached Amir. This mystery man simply lifted his hand and Amir felt his entire body go limp. The man stood over Amirs rag doll body and laid a glass bowl in the shape of a pearl next to him.

When he woke up he was staring at his wife who at this point, was more nervous than anyone. She was carrying the baby in one arm and in the other she tightly gripped the bowl that was left by the man on the subway. They examined it closely and realized they inside was a note. They pulled it out and both read it in sync. The note said the glass bowl had the power to turn tears into pearls. Amir and his wife both looked at each other with nothing to say. Hours went by as they examined the piece of glass that would surly change their lives for better or for worse.

After what had happened it was impossible for Amir to concentrate on anything else but being miserable. All he would do was rent movies like Rudy and A Walk to Remember until he was all cried out. No matter how many tears he would shed a day, he was never satisfied. It came to a point were Amir was causing pain onto himself in order to turn his tears into pearls.

Weeks had gone by and Amir had become possessed by this glass bowl. A man with a stable family was now becoming a man with a thirst for pain. As he walked into his home one Tuesday night he saw his wife getting dinner ready for the family.

The next morning was far from ordinary. A police man knocked on the door to no avail. After several tense minutes at the door Officer Marshal knocked down the door. What he saw was enough to drive a man to drink. It was Amir standing over his wife’s blood soaked body as his baby cried in the background. Tears poured from his eyes as they quickly turned to pearls. The scene was something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Nothing prepared officer Marshal with what he was going to have to deal with today.

Amir was handcuffed and taken into the police station to be questioned. As he entered the investigation room, the lights quickly shut off. He was face to face with the man that gave him the glass bowl. “Why?” Amir asked. “Why did you take my wife away from me? Why did you make me do this? I was happy until gave me that god forsaken bowl. The man in the black coat and white hood stopped him and said, “The greed of gain has no time or limit to its spaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty and life.” With those words Amir knew his wife’s death was fueled by greed. It was evident that Amir would do anything for money, including taking his own wife’s life away.

It’s sad but most people in todays world would do anything for money. Its funny how someone can make assumptions about a person based solely on their appearance. A father going for a walk with his son can not possibly be truly happy if he doesn’t have money. The man driving his new German sports car can’t possibly be unhappy. It’s these kinds of things that get drilled into children’s heads and makes it impossible for them to grow up with the right idea of what happiness is. The unhappy kids shop at GAP while all the “cool” kids go to Gucci and Prada.

I sometimes worry what I am going to do with my life. I worry I wont be able to get that six figure job and marry that super model girl I see walking down Madison Square Park. Then I stop and think, why is that going to make me happy? The super model girlfriend I understand but why do I need the tick of a ten thousand dollar Rolex on my wrist to put a smile on my face.

Today at work a man who clearly was not living the most comfortable life financially walked into the bike store. He was holding his sons hand and helped him onto his new bike. I wasn’t sure who was happier at that moment, the father who wants nothing more than his son to be happy or the 7 year old who is finally getting the bike he has been wanting for so long. Right after he left the store a father and mother walked in with their 8 year old daughter who looked like she had been on a diet of soda and candy. This couple looked like they had ninety nine problems but money wasn’t one of them. Being the curious type, I couldn’t help but listen in on their argument. “I can’t take your god-damn bitching anymore. All I do is provide for this family and all you do is bitch and complain.” Being the sales virtuoso that I am, I was able to sell them the most expensive bike in the store, an all carbon Lamond Tour De Course that ran for about seventy five hundred dollars. It seemed to me that the couple was only buying the bike because it had the fattest price tag. I kept my eye on them noticing