My grandfather was famously cheap. He reused Ziploc bags, cut paper towels into thirds, and complained about restaurant portions. So when he died and left me a sealed envelope labeled For My Grandson, I expected nothing.
Inside was a coupon.
$100 off any in-store purchase.
No expiration date.
A store I’d never heard of.
My cousins inherited property, bonds, even a car. I got a coupon.
Out of spite more than curiosity, I eventually visited the store—a forgotten shop in a dying strip mall. Ordinary aisles. Ordinary products. At checkout, I handed over the coupon.
The cashier froze. The manager was called.
He told me the truth: only five such coupons existed. Four had been redeemed decades ago. Every time, something life-altering followed—fortune, success, disappearance. The fifth had never been used.
“You’re holding it,” he said.
I wandered the store afterward, unsettled. Then I saw it in a dusty display case: an antique camera priced at $99.99. I didn’t need it. It felt wrong—and inevitable.
I bought it. The total came to zero.
That night, strange things began happening. People appeared who hadn’t been there before. A black car watched my apartment. When I took photos with the camera, reality shifted—subtly at first, then violently. A knock at the door vanished. A man disappeared, leaving only a shoe behind.
Eventually, the camera transported me somewhere else entirely: a forest, then back again with a single click.
I found my grandfather’s journal hidden among his things. He’d acquired the camera in 1972. Not a camera that captures what is, he wrote. It captures what could be.
A final photo appeared on its own: an older version of me, smiling, standing before an open vault. On the back were four words:
You are the fifth.
I packed and left.
Now I travel by photograph—train stations, boardrooms, vaults, moments that never quite existed until I arrived. I use the camera sparingly. Never in anger. Never for greed.
I finally understood my grandfather. He wasn’t cheap. He was guarding something dangerous. And he trusted me not to sell it, exploit it, or cheapen it.
I thought I’d inherited a joke.
Instead, I redeemed a $100 coupon for the most powerful object I’ll ever touch.
Some opportunities don’t look like treasure.
Sometimes, they look like something you almost throw away.
