A thousand pounds

A young man was finishing a meal at a restaurant. A young woman wearing dark glasses approached with a parcel under her arm. She sat down at the man’s table and whispered: ”How would you like to earn a thousand pounds?”

The man had not noticed her until she began speaking since he was eager to finish his delicious fish soup. He picked up a white napkin from the table and wiped the corners of his mouth. ”Yes of course” the man shouted out sarcastically. 

The woman gave him an angry look, clenched her jaw, fake smiled and then said: ”I’ll see you soon I hope” at the same time as she handed him a closed envelope. She stood up, nodded towards the man and slowly walked out of the restaurant without looking back.

The man quickly rounded up his visit at the restaurant and walked out with his jacket in one hand and the envelope in the other. Just outside of the restaurant he nervously opened the envelope. It was a list with things he was supposed to do to earn the money. He read it out loud ”Number one- throw ALL of your clothes in a dust-bin, number two- walk naked trough the city to the harbor, number three- meet me at the harbor 10 pm sharp, and don’t be late.” Only this and I’ll be rich? This must be the best day of my life, thought the man. 

A girl standing a couple of meters away looked at him and giggled. The man gave her a creepy look and said: ”I’m going to be rich”. 

It occurred to the man that it all was strange, the woman randomly choosing him to give the list to, the part about him walking naked, the harbor and a thousand pounds, but he was way too excited to get the money to think about the possibility that he could be fooled with. 

After only a minute of searching he found a dust-bin where he instantly threw all his clothes without a doubt. After burying his clothes in the dust-bin he looked at a big clock at the wall next to him and realized he only had fifteen minutes to get to the harbor. He started running. Luckily for the man there were not a lot of people out since it was late in the evening. After a couple of minutes running he saw some of his friends, they were talking and laughing loudly until they saw him. In only an instance they all went quiet. The man felt ashamed for a second but quickly remembered al the money he was going to get and kept running whilst waving at his friends. After he had ran around a corner his friends all started laughing hysterically whilst questioning themselves for ever being friends with a man like him. 

When he finally arrived he saw the woman standing in front of two big black cars. He was sweating, even though it was pretty cold and he wasn’t wearing anything at all. She waved happily and made a gesture that told him to come closer. He did as she pleased, as he had done the entire night. She examined him slowly from his toes to his head then said: ”You did great” she made a brief break and then she said ”For that you shall be rewarded”. The man smiled and said ”Yes, thank you, where’s the parcel?”. She turned around and looked at one of the black cars, one of the windows slowly rolled down and inside sat a man with dark glasses and a black suit. He reached the same parcel that the woman had carried earlier out the window. The woman grabbed it and gently gave it to the man, who was still naked. She said ”goodbye” and then started to giggle. The man in the car giggled as well and rolled his window up. Both of the cars drove away and the man was left with nothing but the parcel. 

He sat down on a bench and slowly opened the parcel, his heart was beating fast. When he finally could lay his eyes on what was on the inside of the parcel it was nothing that delighted him. Inside were no money, no check, no cash, no pay card or nothing even similar to money. Instead there was a book with the name ”a thousand pounds”. 

/ A short story written by me for "Spyken English"