Entree DM 145

Bella Tankwirth had decided that she was no longer interested in a relationship with that runaround freak of a boyfriend, Billy Bob. He didn’t have a last name, said he’d forgotten what it was, and it didn’t matter, anyway. His piercing blue eyes and nimble hands were what had won her over...that is, until she found out that he was simultaneously having affairs with all three of the Charlie’s Angels.

“No wonder you can’t remember your own name, ya bastard!” she screamed.

Somehow, after that episode, she wanted to ask him which lady was his favorite. She suspected Farah Fawcett, all those blonde soft curls and sparkly perfect-teeth smile. Kate Jackson was way too bubbly and Jaclyn Smith seemed bitter and acerbic.

Oh, well, time to push on.

While reading the Fletchville Morning Tattler, she stumbled on an ad from Tyler Winklevoss, explaining all about his new gambit for riches, Bitcoin.

“What?” she thought, “Why didn’t I know about this superfluous and mind-bending virtual goldmine before? I’ll get filthy rich and blow this popsicle stand.”

She got to work, and sunk the inheritance from Grandpa Fred into bids that built her a blockchain of altcoins with a distributed attack surface ethereum that enabled her to generate fungible hot wallet hash. At first, her liquidity pool looked solid, till the damned wallet miners came in and open sourced her node.

She tried, she really tried. Polygon phishing and token validators did her in. They stole her wallet address and buried it in a backyard of virtual real estate, cryptolocked the metadata, froze the floor difference and decentralized her attributes. It was over.

Penniless, Bella couch-surfed at her friend Lurleen’s for a bit while looking for work. Lurleen was a very successful jello wrestling champion, and offered Bella a tryout, which was politely declined.

While walking to an interview at CostCo one sunny Tuesday morning, she ran smack dab into Tyler Winklevoss. He wasn’t alone, either. Farrah Fawcett held his hand as they walked out of the Chick Filet to her yellow Lamborghini. She was all giggly and buoyant. Bella eavesdropped.

“I’m wantin’ you to airdrop those hotwallet attributes all over me,” said Tyler.

“Is that gonna be a 51% attack, baby?” asked Farrah. “Cause if it is, you’re gonna have to spend some of that liquidity pool on me. Let’s go to Cartier and seal this deal.”

Well, that was that, thought Bella. She walked back to Lurleen’s and called Billy Bob.

“Hey. I just saw your girlfriend hangin’ out with Richie Rich Winklefart,” she said, nearly choking on her own sarcasm.

“No prob,” said he-with-no-last-name. “I assume you mean Tyler. He’s gonna make me rich, man, so rich I’ll be able to buy this whole damn town.”

“Yeah,” answered Lurleen. “Maybe then you can afford a 23andMe kit and find out your last name. Bye.” Click.

Birds sang, and somewhere in the metaverse, another self-custody wallet was emptied out.

Longtime friend of the Macabre, Ed Coonce is an Encinitas, CA, artist, writer, actor, and creative director. Like so many of those in this community, his work nearly ground to a halt during the pandemic season. His stories, primarily satire and humor flash fiction, have appeared here in the past, and he will continue to contribute at every opportunity. His latest writing project is a series of parodies of the Dick and Jane series of early school primers he learned to read from. He is also now a non-official expert in bitcoin and crypto, which are covered in his newest anthology, “The Crypto Queen and other Stories.” A Vietnam vet, his personal memoir “The Photograph,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.