SUPERWORLD

François III

"Go away!" Françoise shouted at him.

"But, mon petite, I can help you now, look at the ticket!" François showed her his winning lotto ticket, his new lucky charm.

"I don't give a damn how much money you've won, you're a bastard and you'll never be my father!" Françoise exclaimed.

François grabbed her arm and she slapped him, knocking the lit Gitane from his mouth.

François stood stunned and confused.

"What can you buy with your money, hein? Can you buy all the times you missed my gymnastics competitions? Can you buy all the times I was sick in bed alone because Maman had to work?! Can you buy away the empty feeling I carried with me my entire life, the emptiness where a father should have been? Hein?! Can you, François?!" She was crying now, and her group of friends looked concerned for her.

The day was beautiful, but she eclipsed it. She looked so much like her mother in the school uniform of her parent's alma mater. François still didn't understand.

"Françoise, this is why I was gone. I couldn't pay to give you the life you deserved, so I tried to earn it—" François began explaining.

"Then why didn't you just get a job like maman?! Grand-pére told us that a TV network wanted to make a show of your cartoons, but you refused because it was 'artistically void'!" She shouted.

"Mon chérie, the comic was already lowbrow, making it a Tv show would have reduced it to nothing." François said

"Who. The hell. Cares?! You pretentious little rat! You're so far up your own ass you can't see the daylight!" And with that she stormed off, her friends huddling around her and comforting her as they walked away.

François had thought that she would have wanted to receive the news here, amongst her peers to celebrate with them. He lit another cigarette to replace the one that had been knocked from his mouth.

Then why so angry? She should be jumping for joy!

It had been two weeks since François won the lotto, and already his life had greatly improved: he bought a two story house by the sea for him and Grand-Pére, he had bought a new wardrobe, a new car, and even paid off all of his debt and barely made a dent on the thirty million. Not to mention he now lit his cigarettes, not with a cheap plastic lighter from the convenience store, but with a golden one etched with his initials.

This was supposed to fix everything. She was supposed to love me now.

He looked down at his Rolex and noticed the time, half past three, and decided to head home. He had waited outside of the café across the street for over an hour, bragging to the waitress about his winnings and how he was going to surprise his daughter. She hadn't thought it was a good idea, but what did she know?

François walked back to his car, the latest model Rolls Royce, and drove back home, his new home, the one his powers had won him. It is a beautiful, ultra-modern masterpiece, far from the noise of the city, with only a few of the obnoxious drones that delivered packages or satisfied the odd hobbyist, like the large white one that zipped over his lawn as he pulled up. Grand-Pére greeted him at the door.

"François, where have you been? I've been calling you." The old man asked.

"I went to tell Françoise about the lotto. She didn't care." François moped. Grand-Pére sighed and motioned for François to come sit next to him.

"My boy, there are many things money can buy: houses, watches, cars, and clothes. But, there are many things in this world that not even the wealthiest man in the world can pay to obtain: a home, time, or love. You thought that just because you could afford the life you wanted to give her now would mean that she would forget the life she didn't have because you weren't there?" The old man said.