Charley walked back to his apartment in a daze, the plastic bag swinging from his numb fingers while his mind tried to process what had just happened.
The card worked.
It actually, genuinely, impossibly worked.
'Okay, Charley,' he thought, forcing his brain into analytical mode. 'Let's think through the implications here like a rational human being and not like someone who just discovered they can fly.'
First implication: If this card could indeed provide unlimited money, then every problem in his life had just become theoretically solvable. Rent, food, debt, dignity—all of it could be fixed with the right amount of strategic spending.
Second implication: Nothing in life was free, especially not magical money cards found under broken ventriloquist dummies. There had to be a catch. There was always a catch.
Third implication: Even if the card was legitimate, using it carelessly would attract exactly the kind of attention that turned lottery winners into federal investigations.
'Don't be stupid, Charley,' he warned himself as his pulse began to race with possibilities. 'Don't start planning your yacht purchase just because you successfully bought cat food.'
But God, the possibilities...
He could pay rent. Tomorrow morning, when Mr. Kozlov came knocking with eviction papers and that look of barely contained violence, Charley could hand him cash and watch his beady little eyes widen in shock.
He could pay off his credit cards. All of them. The $8,000 of soul-crushing debt that followed him around like a financial death sentence.
He could buy actual food. Not ramen. Not peanut butter sandwiches. Real food that came from the parts of the grocery store he'd been avoiding for months!
'Slow down,' he commanded himself, taking a deep breath of rain-soaked air. 'You successfully spent five dollars and seventy-seven cents. That doesn't make you Warren Buffett.'
But the relief was already flooding through him like warm honey. For the first time in eight months, tomorrow morning didn't look like the apocalypse.
Unless...
'How much money is actually on this thing?' The thought hit him like a bucket of ice water. 'What if it's got like fifty bucks on it? What if I just spent more than ten percent of my total available funds on cat food?'
More troubling: 'How many times can I use it? Once a day? Once a week? Once in a lifetime?'
The last possibility made his stomach clench. What if he'd just wasted the most important financial opportunity of his life on convenience store snacks?
'I need to test this thing properly,' he decided. 'I need to know what I'm working with.'
The nearest ATM was four blocks away, outside the First National Bank branch. Charley started walking faster, then broke into a light jog despite the rain and his ridiculous costume.
Behind him, he heard a pitiful meowing.
He turned to see the cat trying to keep up, its small legs struggling against the water pooling on the sidewalk. It looked like a tiny black mop being dragged behind a very slow car.
'Oh, come on,' Charley thought, his heart doing something uncomfortable in his chest.
He stopped, scooped up the soggy cat, and tucked it inside his costume jacket. It was surprisingly warm and began purring immediately, the vibration tickling his ribs.
"Don't get too comfortable," he told it as he resumed jogging. "This is just temporary transportation."
The cat settled against his chest like it had found its rightful place in the universe.
'Great,' Charley thought. 'Now I'm talking to cats and giving them rides. Next stop: crazy cat lady territory.'
But he had to admit, having something warm and alive pressed against his chest made the rain seem less hostile and the future less terrifying.
The ATM came into view, its blue glow cutting through the darkness like a beacon of possibility or doom—Charley wasn't sure which.
He approached it with the reverence of someone approaching an altar, the cat purring softly in his jacket.
'Okay,' he thought, pulling out the black card. 'Let's find out what we're really dealing with here.'
His first instinct was to go big—withdraw $5,000 and see what happened. But that was exactly the kind of thinking that had gotten him into trouble before.
'Think strategically, not emotionally,' he reminded himself. 'What's the maximum amount I could withdraw that wouldn't seem completely insane given my current financial situation?'
Rent was $800. He had maybe $300 in his checking account. So if someone looked at his bank records, a $1,000 withdrawal wouldn't be completely impossible to explain. Maybe he'd been saving cash under his mattress. Maybe he'd sold something valuable.
'$1,000 it is.'
He slid the card into the machine, his heart hammering so hard he was surprised it wasn't disturbing the cat.
The screen prompted him to enter his PIN.
'0000,' he typed, praying to whatever deity protected desperate fools.
The machine whirred, thinking, processing...
Then displayed a message that made Charley's blood turn to slush:
CARD EXPIRED. TRANSACTION DECLINED.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no..."
The machine ejected his card with mechanical indifference.
Charley stared at it in horror. 'I used it once. ONCE. For five dollars and seventy-seven cents. And now it's expired?'
He wanted to scream. To punch the ATM. To tear the card into pieces and scatter them to the wind like confetti made of broken dreams.
'This is my life,' he thought bitterly. 'Find a magical money card, use it to buy cat food, watch it die immediately. It's like my existence is a cosmic joke and I'm the only one not laughing.'
The cat shifted against his chest, and he looked down at its small, trusting face.
"Sorry, buddy," he whispered. "Looks like we're both going hungry tomorrow."
But as he started to put the card back in his pocket, something caught his eye.
A tiny digital display had appeared at the bottom right corner of the card, so small he almost missed it. Numbers, counting down:
03:42:17... 03:42:16... 03:42:15...
'What the hell?'
Charley held the card closer to the ATM's light, squinting at the display. Three hours, forty-two minutes, and counting down steadily.
'It's 8:17 PM now,' he calculated quickly. 'Three hours and forty-two minutes from now would be...'
His brain did the math.
Midnight.
'Oh my God,' he thought, the pieces clicking together like a lock opening. 'It resets at midnight. The card expires at the end of each day and becomes active again when the new day starts!'
It made perfect sense, in a completely insane way. One use per day. Like a daily allowance from the universe.
'Which means,' Charley realized, his excitement building despite himself, 'I didn't waste my one chance on cat food. I get a new chance every single day.'
The relief hit him so hard his knees nearly buckled. The cat mewed softly, sensing his change in mood.
"Did you hear that, little guy?" he whispered. "We might actually be okay."
But even as hope bloomed in his chest, his analytical mind was already working.
'If I get one withdrawal per day, then I need to be smart about this. Strategic. I can't just start throwing money around like some lottery winner with no impulse control.'
He needed to plan. Budget. Think long-term instead of just solving tomorrow's problems.
'First priority: rent and basic survival. Second priority: figure out what the hell this thing is and where it came from. Third priority: don't end up in federal prison for financial crimes I don't understand.'
Walking home through the rain, Charley felt something he hadn't experienced in months: excitement about the future.
'Who had this card before me? How did it end up under that dummy? And why does it look like it was custom-made for someone who needed a second chance?'
The possibilities began cascading through his mind like a waterfall of potential. He could pay off his debts. Get a decent apartment. Buy clothes that didn't smell like failure and broken dreams.
Maybe even start a business again. Do it right this time.
'Hell,' he thought, grinning despite himself, 'maybe I could even afford to take someone on a date who isn't inflatable.'
Back in his tiny apartment, Charley set the cat down and watched it explore the space with the careful attention of a potential tenant. It sniffed the corners, investigated the leaky radiator, and eventually settled on the threadbare couch like it had always lived there.
"Hungry?" Charley asked, opening the can of cat food.
The cat appeared at his feet instantly, purring with an enthusiasm that suggested it hadn't eaten properly in days.
They sat on the floor together, eating in companionable silence while rain pattered against the windows. The cat ate with delicate precision, pausing occasionally to look up at Charley with what might have been gratitude.
"So," Charley said between bites, "I guess we're roommates now. But I should warn you—I talk to myself a lot, I don't have a TV, and my shower has trust issues."
The cat meowed once and went back to eating.
"Good talk," Charley said. "Really opened up there."
For the first time in months, his apartment didn't feel like a prison cell. It felt like a starting point.
'Tomorrow,' he thought, watching the cat clean its whiskers with tiny pink tongue, 'tomorrow everything changes.'
The timer on the card continued counting down: 02:14:33... 02:14:32...
Charley smiled and settled back against the couch, the cat curling up against his leg like it belonged there.
Outside, the rain continued to fall, but inside, two strays had found shelter.
And tomorrow, one of them was going to find out just how much his luck had changed.