A Brief Case

• Jack Crotty, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2017

“Oh dear, oh dear!” Josh whimpered under his breath, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. He peered down at the briefcase, it wasn’t his but that didn’t stop him from acting as though it was his most valuable possession... Actually it was. He’d been stuck on a long, lonely highway for six hours now, surrounded only by a long stretch of desert and the briefcase wasn’t quite the “motivation” he needed to keep going in fact it made him want to stop. This briefcase was forced into his hands by a stranger whose clothes were in tatters and looked as though the world had already ended for him inside. Always alert and making sure that they were entirely alone, the man had chased down Josh and shoved the case into his arms with instructions for him to follow: “Keep the case away from them, they will try to get it, if they do bad things, very bad things will happen, so please, DON'T LET THEM!” Straight after this he continued cautiously running away from wherever it was he came. Unsure Josh had opened it up, he was aghast to see stacks on stacks of $100 notes all neatly placed around the interior of the case. He snapped it up immediately and began starting to realise why the stranger acted as he did. Josh had often had money problems in the past but not of this sort, he began sweating uncontrollably, concerned of who “Them” was, he began getting suspicious of everything he saw… He was going paranoid thanks to the burden of this case. He endlessly debated in his head what options he had, on one hand he could mindlessly obey the stranger and keep his integrity or on the other hand he could go towards the law and risk discovery by “them”, either way neither to clearly better than the other. Respecting his duties as a law abiding citizen (and becoming more and more afraid of the alternative) he headed towards wait he assumed was an old, abandoned police station. He trudged in it’s direction hoping to find a rusty car or a slightly used radio but as he approached strange sounds were being emitted from the inside. “I don’t have it!” one screamed obviously not being believed by the others. “Alright then, if you don’t have then where is it? If you can’t tell me… Well, I have ways to make you tell me!” Josh was more appalled than he had been in his entire life, this man whom had been captured was the owner of the briefcase! If he told them the truth and he was right outside their hideout well… He preferred not to think about it. Around the back he spotted an old police car with keys on the windshield... He woke up in an isolation cell 3 days later to the news that the man had been found dead on the highway. Money problems can be truly scary no matter what type they are.