Creatix Fiction / August 2, 2025
John and Tom are twin brothers born in Minnesota in the 1940s. Although very much identical on their DNA shells, in financial matters they thought worlds apart. The best example takes us back to the cold winter of January 2013.
Breakfast at the local diner
Over a simple breakfast at their local diner, they each made a financial choice that would ripple through the rest of their lives now in Florida.
“I just locked a 10-year CD at 2% interest, with the $12,000 we got from mother.” said John, stirring cream into his coffee. “It’s safe, insured by the FDIC, and guaranteed to grow. You should look into it.” Outside, snow swirled past frosted windows, and the wind cut through the city like a knife. Inside, the warmth of coffee and bacon grease softened the chill, and the smell of maple syrup clung to the air.
Tom grinned. “I bought Bitcoin with mine. It’s $13 a coin right now. Who knows—maybe that thing really takes off one day.”
John shook his head. “Brother, you just bought bitair,” he said, cracking open a packet of brown sugar. “Even Warren Buffett says it’s a mirage. Most of Wall Street says the same. No intrinsic value, no regulation, pure speculation. No way in heaven that thing doesn't go to hell soon. Come'on I thought you were smarter than that "little" bro”. John had always bragged that he was the elder twin because he was born 95 seconds prior to John.
Tom didn't say a word and grabbed the newspaper, trying to steer the conversation away from his brother’s crypto bashing. The front page was filled with stories about President Obama’s second inauguration, fiscal cliff negotiations in Congress, and the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, which had reignited national debates over gun control. There were updates on job numbers slowly improving after the Great Recession, and speculation about whether the newly launched Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) would succeed or unravel. He rustled the pages as if to say, let's talk about something else.
Tom had read about Bitcoin's potential and how the blockchain technology of “decentralized ledgers” together with “digital scarcity” could make Bitcoin a great investment. However, he didn't want to get his brother involved, knowing that he was very persuasive and could make his change his mind. Instead, he turned the pages of the Star Tribune while sipping coffee. He flipped the paper open, shaking his head as he scanned headlines about subzero temps closing Minneapolis schools, lake ice thickness reports on Mille Lacs, and the Vikings' latest quarterback dilemma.
The Bitcoin Dilema
“Bitcoin,” John went again, adjusting his flannel collar like a man preparing to shovel snow. “It’s not real. Obama can freeze that thing anytime now before more people get scammed. He took a bite of his toast, and looked as his brother waiting for an answer.
Tom shrugged, wrapping his hands around his mug for warmth. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Probably just tossed twelve grand into the snowbank, and that’ll be the end of it. But I figured, I can live with losing it. Wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
He paused, watching a snowplow rumble past the frosted diner window.
“But if that thing takes off like some folks are whisperin’? I’d kick myself from here to Duluth for not at least giving it a whirl. I thought about just putting in a thousand—playing it safe, you know—but then I said, what the heck. Let’s see what happens. Could be nothin’. Could be somethin’. Either way, I’ll sleep fine.”
He took a long sip of coffee and added with a grin, “Besides, it ain’t like I spent it on snowmobiles and lutefisk.”
John’s CD: The Slow and Steady Path
John’s Certificate of Deposit earned 2% annually over 10 years. Reliable. Boring. Comfortable.
After the CD matured in 2023, John rolled the balance into a high-yield savings account earning 3% annually. By July 2025, John had about $16,000. He not only preserved the $12k for a rainy day, but added a nice $4k on top. Not life-changing—but solid, secure, and stress-free.
Tom’s Bitcoin Bet: A Moonshot
In January 2013, Bitcoin was priced at $13. With his $12,000, Tom bought 923 coins:
Over the years, he completely forgot about the whole thing and never looked into his digital wallet.
Enter Rachel Brown
By July 2025, with the help of his neighbor’s granddaughter, Tom finally unearthed the old file where he’d stashed the password—buried deep in a folder on his aging Dell desktop that hadn’t been fired up since the Obama years. Rachel, sharp as a tack and patient as a Lutheran choir director, had just come back home to Rochester after graduating from Minnesota State with honors. She now worked as a financial analyst at Mayo Clinic and was recently engaged to Balal Ratjiff, a physician assistant she’d met during her residency rotation.
As they sat at Tom’s kitchen table—warmed by a space heater and the smell of Folgers—Rachel squinted at the screen and said, “Well, Tom, you’re not gonna believe this... but Bitcoin’s trading at $113,237 a coin.”
Tom blinked. “Per coin?”
She nodded. “And you’ve got 923.08 of them sitting right here in your old wallet.”
They did the math together. The number they landed on—$104,548,141—was enough to buy half the north shore and a lifetime supply of hotdish.
Tom went pale, then red, then leaned back in his chair like a man who’d just seen Paul Bunyan walk past the window.
“Well I'll be... I need to sit down,” he said—already sitting. “That’s... that’s a whole lotta loon calls, right there.”
He didn’t say much after that, just let out a low whistle and poured himself a glass of water.
Later, he joked to Rachel, “I haven’t had a surprise hit me that hard since the ‘91 Halloween blizzard.”
Tom’s $12,000 investment had ballooned into over $104 million.
As the screen refreshed and the final number lit up—$104,548,141—Rachel felt a strange warmth flush through her skin, spreading like a wave from her neck to her fingertips. It wasn’t the heater. It wasn’t the coffee. It was something else—something electric.
For a moment, she was back in her junior year at Kasson-Mantorville High, standing by her locker with her best friends when Justin Halverson, the quarterback, walked up and asked her to prom—right there, in front of everyone. Her friends’ jaws had dropped. She had floated through the rest of the day, convinced life had peaked.
Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately, looking back—Justin dislocated his shoulder during practice two days before the dance and never made it. She went with a friend-of-a-friend instead, and after graduation, Justin faded into memory, just another face on Facebook she hadn’t clicked in years.
Now, more than a decade later, as she sat beside a 70-something with wind-chapped cheeks and a plaid shirt, she felt that same sense of stunned gravity—the inexplicable realization that something important had just happened, though she didn’t yet know why.
Tom wasn’t Justin.
Not even close. And yet... something about the moment—the fortune, the absurdity, the sudden weight of shared discovery—made her look at Tom as if he were glowing. Not with youth, not with charm, but with some weird, unshakable magnetism she couldn’t quite explain.
She blinked, then laughed to herself.
“What?” Tom asked, still staring at the screen like it might explode.
“Nothing,” Rachel said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Just... feels like a movie or something.”
Tom nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off the number. “Yeah. One hell of a plot twist.”
Rachel leaned in, her professional instincts returning as the shock began to wear off. “Tom,” she said gently, “this wallet’s ancient. Like, dial-up-era ancient. It’s amazing you didn’t lose the password. But now that we’ve confirmed the Bitcoin is still here, you really should think about moving it somewhere safer. Something more secure, more user-friendly—like Coinbase or Coldcard or even a multi-sig setup, if you want extra protection.”
Tom scratched his head.
“You think I can just... pick it up and move it?”
“Not exactly,” she smiled. “But I can help. I’d have to come back tomorrow, maybe bring my laptop and walk you through the whole thing. It’s not hard, but you want to be careful—when you’re dealing with that much money, one wrong keystroke and poof, it’s gone.”
He nodded, still dazed. “Yeah. Yeah, come back tomorrow. I’ll make coffee.”
Rachel stood up and reached for her coat, her mind already drifting. Come back tomorrow. Simple words, but they landed differently. As she walked out into the crisp Minnesota evening, something tugged at her—something playful, electric, and irrational.
She thought about what dress she might wear. Not work clothes. Not just jeans. Something... nice.
She laughed at herself as she brushed snow off her windshield. What are you doing, Rachel? He’s old enough to be your grandfather. He wears socks with sandals. He still uses an AOL email address. Somehow as hormones would have it the Tommyurtiger@AOL.com address was roaring some sense for young Rachel now. She couldn't point to it consciously at the moment, but there were 104 million reasons why she wanted to return and maybe come back to Tom's place.
But the thought lingered, uninvited and unshakable. Somehow, deep down, something inside her stirred—the same flutter she’d once felt walking up the high school gym steps with Justin Halverson’s arm around her, her friends watching in awe.
This wasn’t prom. This was something stranger. Unexpected. Maybe inappropriate. But very real.
And tomorrow, she’d wear the green dress. The one with the subtle neckline.
TO BE CONTINUED
www.creatix.one
Comments
Post a Comment