Rainbow's End

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Tara

For seventy years, Liam had chased every rainbow to capture a leprechaun and his pot of gold. Knowing that this would be his last rainbow, Liam slowly hobbled to the Hill of Tara.  Gasping in surprise, there sat his leprechaun.

Liam threw his rope and wrapped it around the green fella. “Ha!  I’ve caught you at last! Give me your όr (gold), you rόgaile (rascal)!”

The leprechaun sighed. “Have ye caught me at last, Ian? Been lookin’ for the όr all yer life, fear (man). I’ll give ye the gold.”  With that, he pulled out a Samsung 7 android phone, texting in some numbers. “Here you go!” and handed it to Liam.

“What?  WHAT? Bitcoins? Really?” Liam gasped.

“Worth every $8, 810.18 today!  And, ye have one hundred that, $8,810.18 times 100, so there you go, now. Redeem online." With that he faded into air. 

He left a wallet filled with ₤1,000 as an extra gift, which in American dollars is roughly $4,000.  Liam hobbled over to it and headed to O'Flanagan's Pub. No more End of the Rainbows for me.

Wednesday Words: James Marshall

This time of day was just about the only part of life that James Marshall enjoyed: Seeing the West reflected into the East, changing the sky into a sky of molten gold.

James chuckled bitterly…molten gold… His own gold, now long gone, was only brass in his mind.  His mind was filled with what-ifs about the past, when he found gold flakes which had ruined his life, ruined his life but good.

Where Marshall found gold flakes

If only John Sutter had been just a smidgen parsimonious.  Sutter spent money he did not have, borrowed money he could not repay, and lost his own fortune.

Marshall clenched his misshapen hands when he thought about Sutter.  All the work Marshall had done, breaking bones in his hands, and for nothing.  No blessings showered on me then.  Or now.

With all that could have been, Marshall could not gain any traction in keeping his sawmill running. His workers had dropped their tools and picked up pans, went to the American River.  Penniless again.

He pleaded with the California State Legislature and they awarded him with a two-year pension.  What he really desired was some investigative search into the theft of his future.

What if..what if...
 Re-creation of James Marshall's homesteader cabin at the end of his life--
While on a field trip of middle-schoolers, I saw this.  Pretty sparse.

So here he sat, gazing at the dusky sky disappear, before he arose and went into his homestead shack.  If only, if only…

Dedication at base of monument

Source

Thanks go to Delores at Under the Porch Light for challenging writers to create poems, prose, fiction, etc.  Each week Delores provides six unrelated words with which to create something comprehensible, or not.  The underlined words above are the words provided. Please click on the lone grapefruit in the right sidebar to access her site. Interesting stuff, there.