When Debt Said Hello

One fine summer eve, going broke, Allister spent his final nickel on a single package of chewing gum. He told no one of this purchase until he told me years later. It frustrated him that logic should play such a heavy hand in decisions. And whose logic was it? For, Allister's tastes craved chewing gum. So, should it not be, that logic would give Allister permission to purchase chewing gum? Rent was due. This was true. This was in the midst of The Great Depression when the skies rained unhappy businessmen. This was also true. But, in an obvious attempt to shun a logic that was not his, Allister had long ago buried a month's rent deep below the ground to never be touched again.

And why? Well, why boil everything down? Logically, the properties of boiling should hold true for everything, that when you boil anything down too far, it will lose its taste.

Instead, Allister chewed. One by one, chewing each piece together, until the gum bent in its elastic breakdown, and thought of what the one month of rent really was, paper and metal. And when the gum was at its most pliable, Allister wadded it into the front of his mouth and blew into it. And he thought of the paper and the metal and the yellowing and the corroding, and wondered, "where is the logic in wealth?" 

He let his breathe fill the gummy skin of the bubble, let it carry him up and away, let him float in the sky. And he sang a lullaby to himself that he vaguely remembered hearing. He could not remember from whom, but he could logically assume it was from the voice of his mother or father:

Rest my dear.
Close your eyes.
And know,
That if the night should
Take all the stars,
We'd still have the moon.
For-
Some who are given lemons,
Will make lemonade.
But, you and I,
We'll learn to juggle.
And we'll juggle lemons
Until it all makes sense.