Around a Pound

When I was 8 the tooth-fairy left a Pound under my pillow. She moved so softly I did not stir, and at an unknown time in the night I woke.

"Wow. A Pound. A whole Pound - and it's all mine."

My eight year old lucid brain was once again fulfilled with belief.
And in my hand was money.

The concept must have elapsed me, for the next thing I did was inexplicable. I had been lovingly and tightly tucked in by my mother, and this new Pound I balanced on the tip of my tongue.
Quickly it agitated into a wobble and lost itself over the side. It had fallen straight down my throat.

Then I had learned my first lesson in money. You can't eat it. You may have five thousand Pound coins but no food, and then you would die.

Feeling I had lost something that I wanted, I went to my parents bed-side and told them.
"I swallowed the Pound the tooth-fairy left for me."

I cried, but not for my own well-being, but for the Pound. My parents were more concerned for me and brought me to a hospital where an X-ray showed a Pound at a crossroads between my lung and my stomach.

Luckily that Pound went into my digestion system. Later, I shat that Pound into a bucket and my devoted Granny fished it out with some rubber gloves. There were ideas to have this Pound put on a chain for me to keep - after all it had been inside me. I had other plans though, as those irresistible sweets I'd taken as an early vice would tell. The exchange was made, the sweets were mine, and the Pound was in the system.

It still is. It is part of the monetary system that enslaves mankind.