Chapter 54

“I wasn’t quite expecting it to be this bad,” Sean said looking over the dump. In the midst of an unusually hot day, the mounds of garbage gave off a stench that threatened to destroy his sense of smell forever. The limits on the range of his magic gift required him to be right in the center of it.

“What are you doing?” a male voice asked him from behind.

Sean turned around and spotted the pair of elves, George and Georgia, watching him. George was devastatingly handsome and Georgia was overwhelmingly beautiful. They were floating about a foot above the garbage. They were watching him with obvious amusement on their faces. Sean said, “Oh, hello. I haven’t seen you around for a while.”

“We’ve seen you,” Georgia said. Her voice reminded Sean of a choir singing.

“We caught a few of the plays you’ve had at your house,” George said.

“Oh, you should have come up for some sodas and popcorn,” Sean said. He had not realized that the elves had actually been by his house.

“Unlike the Dwarves, I’m afraid that we don’t particularly care for sodas and popcorn. We prefer wine and fruit,” George said with a hint of disdain in his voice. Elves tended to be the aristocrats of the magical races.

“I fear that my parents would never allow us to serve wine. I will make sure to have some apples out for you tonight,” Sean said. He could imagine a bunch of drunken dwarves loose in the backyard. They would probably remodel the house, or at least begin to remodel the house.

“We’ll stop by your concession stand the next time that we watch one of your plays,” Georgia said.

Looking at the trash around him, Sean felt that it wasn’t the kind of place where Elves would normally live. He asked, “Do you come out here often?”

“This is our first time out here,” George answered amused by the question.

“We came out here to see what you were doing,” Georgia answered.

Surprised by that, Sean said, “You came out here to see me? I am honored. I doubt that I would come out here to see me if I were you.”

Georgia said, “What are you doing out here amongst all this trash?”

“Looking for gold,” Sean answered knowing that it sounded kind of stupid. A dump would have been the last place he would have thought of to find anything of value.

“Treasures in a midden,” George said with an amused expression on his face.

Georgia laughed and said, “I like it. There’s nothing like seeking a beautiful rose in the midst of a dunghill.”

“There is a sense of irony about it that I can appreciate,” George said. The Elves were attracted to ironic situations.

“I don’t know about a sense of irony, but this is killing my sense of smell,” Sean said. This was not on his list of most favored ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. In fact, if he had such a list with this on it the list would have been ten miles long and it would have been the very last item on it.

“I can imagine,” George said. Their magic was working overtime to keep the stench away from their noses.

Waving a hand in front of her nose, Georgia said, “We must be off. The smell is becoming a little too much for us.”

“Have a nice day,” Sean said smiling at the pair of elves.

“Fare well,” Georgia said while turning transparent and disappearing from view.

“Have fun,” George said fading from view.

“Goodbye,” Sean said waving to where they had been. He looked around and then said, “I’m going to have to learn how to disappear like that.”

Sean looked down at his locator compass. He was standing right next to some gold; more accurately he was standing above some gold. He looked down at his feet wondering how he was going to get the gold. He moved a little of the trash with his toe. The sudden increase in odor convinced him that he didn’t want to dig around in the trash.

He said, “There’s got to be a way to get it out without having to dig for it.”

Sean was wearing his pants with a dozen pockets. Each pocket was loaded with lots of lightweight items that he could control with his magic. Thinking there had to be something in his pockets that would help; he rummaged through them trying to find something that inspired him. Finally, he pulled out a latex glove. He ordered, “Get the gold.”

The glove dropped to the top of the trashed and wormed its way in amongst the trash. Sean watched it slowly disappear into the trash pile. He stood there looking down at his feet waiting for the glove to return. He had visions of it returning with a jewelry box filled with valuable jewels. After nothing happened for a minute, he said, “This is exciting. The anticipation is about to kill me.”

After two minutes, Sean started to get worried said, “It should have been back by now.”

After five minutes, he asked, “Is it digging its way to China?”

“I don’t think it is coming back,” Sean said after waiting ten minutes. By this time his eyes were watering from the fumes generated by the decomposing trash that surrounded him.

He was about to give up when the tattered remains of the latex glove poked up through the trash. A small gold gleam was just visible through the debris at his feet. Sean reached down and picked up the piece of gold. Holding it up, he said, “A gold tooth? That’s disgusting, but I guess it is a start.”

He slipped the gold tooth into his pocket and pulled out the locator compass. He said, “Find the nearest unowned piece of gold.”

The locator compass pointed to the next mound of trash. It looked to him like someone had dumped ten thousand disposable diapers on it. Looking at the size of the mound, Sean said, “Oh boy. This is just getting better and better.”

Walking over to the mound of trash, he reached in his pocket and pulled out another latex glove. Looking at it, he said, “Get the gold.”

The latex glove wormed its way into the trash heap. It was ten minutes before the thumb of the latex glove returned to the surface. The thumb was all that remained of the original glove. Trapped within the curled bit of latex were ten links of a fine gold chain. Sean picked it up and stared at the miniscule quantity of gold. He couldn’t even feel it in his hand. He frowned and said, “The latex glove was worth more than that.”

He put the chain into his pocket and pulled out the locator compass. He ordered it to point to the nearest piece of gold that was not owned by anyone. It took him a few seconds to determine that the nearest piece gold was in the trash pile at his feet. He pulled out his last latex glove and ordered it to get the gold. By this time, the odor from the baby diapers was making him dizzy. He couldn’t move away since his magic didn’t extend that far. He hoped that he didn’t collapse because that would kill him.

The latex glove returned after twenty minutes. There was so little left of it that he couldn’t even recognize what part of the glove it had come from. It held a little piece of gold. He picked it up and examined it. At first he couldn’t make out what it was, but then realized that it was a small part from an earring. Staring at it, he said, “This is not quite working out the way I thought it would.”

He pulled out his compass and ordered it to find the nearest gold that was not owned. It pointed to the next mound of garbage. Looking at the pile of garbage, Sean said, “I could end up being out here all day.”

Having exhausted his supply of latex gloves, Sean returned to his truck. The hour spent out at the dump had a great disappointment to him. He had a gold tooth, a small bit of chain, and a broken earring to show for his time out there. The total didn’t weigh much and he knew that the pure gold content was probably less than half of what the pieces weighed. Getting in his truck, he drove home thinking that he had to find something around the house that would be better at retrieving the gold than the latex gloves.