Fiction

Six Guaranteed Steps to Make One Million Dollars Today

All you need is a match and some lighter fluid

Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash

I figure I should write it down. Every step. Before I forget.

It’s already getting late.

So:

Step One.

Find your sister’s time machine. It’s either under her bed or stashed in the back of the top shelf of her closet. Behind her old American Girl dolls. She figures you forgot about it, that you don’t think about it every single minute of every single day. So she’s gotten careless. And really, she knows you’re too lazy and too scared to use it without the instruction manual.

Step Two.

Google the instruction manual. It might still be on the Black & Decker site, but probably cached. It definitely won’t be live. I don’t even know when they discontinued making them, but there should still be a trace of it out there somewhere.

IMPORTANT: The Makita has a very similar name but it is NOT THE SAME. Do not use that instruction manual. You will end up in that void they always talk about. Trust me on this one.

VARIATION: If you can’t find the manual, because your sister burned it and somehow managed to eliminate all traces of it even from the Dark…