His true love had been the passion for money. Money that was tactile, which he could hold. He was a man of the flesh, what he owned had to be embodied as well. He didn’t do something with his money, he made. More and more. Buildings rising high in the sky with full elevator walls filled with the buttons of floors. Golf clubs, artificial island resorts, he built and built. He still needed more. The board meetings about profit had become such a bore. They did nothing, made nothing, talked and earned evermore. He had to keep his legs in that 100% silk suit wrapped around the bars of his chair, otherwise he might bounce through the ceiling. His hands were another matter, he kept them on the desk, all fingers splayed to help keep him down and not pulled up by the weightlessness of his head. Those daydreams had such pull. Attention deficit disorder, the need to move the world.

His eyes were dry from staring at the screen all day. He blinked and saw the bill on his desk. A distraction. He picked it up, a 500 euro bill. He loved the soft, real feeling of cash. It still had a trace of perfume from the person who had had it before, something like lilac he thought. He wanted to lift it to his nose, but his screen was on without a filter. The video call blabbered on and on as his hands hidden from view of the camera, folded and pinched that bill into shape. Trying to hide a widening yawn, he looked down and saw a full bloomed lavender rose.

He turned off his camera, said there were problems with the connection. He fumbled in his billfold as the meeting stretched into the late afternoon hours. There he found three American one-hundred dollar bills. His hands began their weave and twist while he forced his eyes open and let out every so often an ‘uh-hum’, so the others might think they had his full attention. When the meeting had finally come to an end, there in his hands was that flower with a green stem and two fat leaves. He took one of the executive crystal water glasses from the collection on the conference table and placed that expensive flower in it. It perfumed the air right there between the tombstones on his desk.

He could no longer concentrate on the flow of wealth, so he turned off his Mac and looked in his briefcase and wallet. There was no more cash, just platinum credit cards. They were hard, couldn’t be bent, plastic without life. He turned his computer back on and put in an order to be delivered ASAP. He had emptied every account. As the last act of his office day, he took that dry one flower bouquet with him and pushed the button for the chauffeur.

His order came the next morning right as he opened the door to leave for the office.

“Sign here, sir.” The man held out his tablet and Connor Gaines pressed his thumb on the screen. The men on each side of the armored car driver, kept their sunglasses on and didn’t even offer a ‘good morning’. Then two men in the van received the signal and with two dollies they brought two digital safes which took all their brawn to push.

Connor held the door open, “Just put them right inside. I’ll take care of the rest.”

They nodded their heads and continued to grunt as the hard metal hit those thick oak floors. Connor, wanting to save all the cash, took out one of his credit cards and asked if he could tip with that.

The deliverer replied, “Of course, who has cash anymore.”

He certainly had no idea what was in those safes. Once they had left and the door was properly locked, Connor left a message that he wasn’t feeling well and would be spending the day at home. The first time in all those years of earning his fortune.

Within an hour he had taken the bundled bills out of the two safes and had stacked them around his living room, ordered according to color. All the other currencies of the world had rainbow pastel hues, all except for those green dollars. This time, he was really going to make something out of his money. Something he had dreamed of all night. On the coffee table next to his half-drunk mug of coffee, he placed his hand on a tattered book that had lain long in a musty old box with the words: childish things. He had somehow in his hurry of writing those words mixed up ‘childhood’ with ‘childish’. He read the first pages which explained that there were only two real folds for making:

Pretty much every fold is either a Mountain fold, a Valley fold or a combination of the two. With a Mountain Fold the crease bends the paper down and the crease resembles a mountain. With a Valley Fold the crease bends the paper up and the crease resembles a valley.

He took the bills with not so many zeros and began to practice those two folds. Easy, so he flipped to page three and four. An inside reverse and outside reverse fold led to the Rabbit Ear and Squash fold. Last were four that took a bit more dexterity: Pleat, Crimp, Petal, and Swift fold. His fingers ached but that’s how it goes when you make something with money. He was ready for the hardest of all, the Open Sink, a deep three dimensional fold. After almost ten tries, he had mastered it. He was ready, he closed his eyes and thought of his dreams, both from day and night.

His hands were in sync, folding and pressing, flipping and creasing. Each line perfectly flattened so that each piece would fit into the other. He worked from the floor up. In the first creases he decided to take all the currency that was shades of pink, a small pattern emerged like you’d find on the best cloths of the Parisian or Milan runways. When he had reached the first half, he stood next to it, his waist five centimeters higher. It would be a perfect fit. The hard part had begun, out from those pinks he began to take those US dollars and build two limbs on each side. Each fold and pouch was not allowed to have any deviation or his whole money making would come down like a house of cards. The hardest of all was the Open Sink technique to give the upper part just the fine rounding it needed and then from there to go thinner in an upward pull.

He stopped. His fingers shook from strain. Small paper cuts opened and closed in the movement of his hands. He closed his eyes, trying to bring back his dream from the night before, the dream of so many days. His breath calmed, his blood pressure dropped and there it was the image. He began again. The hardest pieces of all, the round cheeks, the full lips, the eyes halfway open, the ears attached with just a small slit in the bills. But then he thought, her hair, how could he do that? He gathered the 50 euro bills and took them to the document shredder. Just the right color, blond with a tinge of orange.

She stood, a perfect balance. He took the rose folded the day before and placed it in her hand. He kissed those paper folded fingers, ,smelled lavender perfume. But there was no breath, no heave of breast. He scratched his sweaty head and realized nothing lives without a name. He was an expert at names, his products had always been aptly marketed. He concentrated again and then he whispered in her legal tender ear, “Princess Dolleuro Origami.”

Exotic and valuable, just like her. Yet, no life came. She was still just a paper doll. He saw on her cheek, a tattoo: In God We Trust. But he was sure all that he did had left him on the wrong side to pray. There she was, the woman of his dreams made of what he loved most. He had used all his cash, he was broke and broken hearted. Not one cent was left to buy her a soul and he didn’t have one to sell himself to the fiery one waiting for him below.