Aladdin: Book 3 Chapter 4

## Verse 1

The news from below had turned increasingly gruesome.

Nevertheless, he continued to keep his eyes on his **monitor**.

The dark circles below his bloodshot eyes had now blackened to the point they appeared tattooed.

"I'll drop these and buy this. What's happened to the volatility — What?!"

The man's abrupt scream was the result of his monitor **freezing**.

"I lost **connection**?! There's no way!"

Despite his desperate efforts, he couldn't get his internet to reconnect.

"I'll have someone check it out..."

After much deliberation, he left his apartment for the third time.

 I should be able to check it at the brokerage firm.

 The markets are still open!

 I can't afford to lose my money over this!

## Verse 2

Money. Money is the only thing that keeps me

human. Money is my reason for living. Only money.

It's all for money...

## Verse 3

― If being rich means a life of loneliness, I don't want that.

That girl whispering to herself on the hospital bed... Who is she?

## Verse 4

― Thank you for coming.

A thin white hand strokes my head. Outside in the

hallway of the hospital, my dad talks to a doctor.

## Verse 5

― It's hard to feel like living when you're stuck

not able to do anything.

"Yeah," I said, agreeing to the older girl's word. But

my dad next to me grimaced.

## Verse 6

― If only we had the money, she could live a little

longer. And then maybe we'd finally find a donor.

― Every time we'd leave the hospital, my dad

would cry over the same thing.

## Verse 7

If only we had money. If only we had money, then...

― Did you save her?

## Verse 8

It makes sense. Sis was the princess of the family.

To both dad and me. If we had anything in

ommon, it was that we hated seeing her suffer.

## Verse 9

All we wanted was to free her from her illness

— the sooner the better. So when she passed away...

I laughed with joy.

## Verse 10

*Before*

(The man kept walking,) and as he did, he took a handful of caffeine tablets and guzzled them down with an energy drink.

"I can't sleep. I need to be aware of every transaction. Money moves every second!"

Mumbling to himself, he threaded through the busy city as if sleepwalking.

"**Don't fall asleep**... If you do..."

――He **dreamt** of the past.

He schoolmates shunned him.

A coworker mocked his incompetence and kept their distance.

A scrawny pale body.

His sister's face writhen in pain.

His father striking him as he cried ―

"Money would **solve** everything!"

 How can I live without money?!

 There's no meaning without money!

 Money! Money! Money!

 Money is everything in this world!!!

*After*

The **stock prices** that day displayed on a screen lite up at a brokerage firm.

The stock he had just purchased by dropping others, made him **millions** in a single day.

"Hah... Hahaha, AHAHAHAHA!"

Amid explosions , riots, looting, dead bodies sprawled across the road, screams and cries, he laughed wholeheartedly.

"With this I can save my sister! And Dad will be happy for once! Am I right?! ...Huh?"

― No. My sis died a long time ago.

And Dad's gone missing...

Just as those thoughts occurred to him, a **blood vessel** burst in his brain from a caffeine overdose.

Meanwhile, the numbers on the electric display had vanished.

## Discordant Poem

In the midst of a broken world, the man cast away

sleep to chase the market. What is it that drives him

towards wealth? Even he has forgotten the reason.

He used to have a dad and a sister. But their

poverty took her away from them. As a result, his

father fell apart, and the man became obsessed

with wealth. Before he knew it, his goal and means

to it had overturned.

His attachment to money was to provide a life. But

now, it had taken over his. And so, at the cost of his

own sleep, the man suffered from a brain

hemorrhage — his last image being meaningless

stock prices in a broken world.