by Colleen Chen



After making sure no one was around, Cosmo unzipped his pants to relieve himself in the park gardens. Just then, a tiny female with wings popped out of a flower.

“Stop!” she cried.

Cosmo was so surprised, he did pause.

“Are you my conscience?” he asked. “If so, I gotta pass on your advice this time, ‘cause I really gotta go.”

“I am not your conscience. I’m a fairy. And if you withhold your urine from my home in these gardens, I’ll give you a marvelous magic boon.”

“What—you mean like make me really rich? That sort of thing?”

“If that’s what you want, yes.”

With difficulty, Cosmo controlled his urge. He ran to the park bathroom and made it just in time.

When he returned, the fairy was waiting for him. She took out a tiny wand and waved it in front of his pants.

“My flower and I appreciate your kind gesture. You have now been blessed—but remember, it only will last for twelve hours.” She disappeared inside the flower.

“Hey, wait—where’s my boon?”

But the fairy was gone.

Cosmo cursed under his breath and stomped off to get drunk at a bar.

After a good half dozen beers, Cosmo stumbled to the men’s bathroom. He was relieving himself at the urinal when he noticed something odd. His urine wasn’t making any noise.

He peered down. The urinal was painted a shiny gold color inside. It looked like real gold.

As he was examining the urinal, a single drop of pee splashed onto the floor. Where it hit, the floor shone gold. When he inspected it, he found it was dry; he scraped it with his nail and a fine gold dust shimmered on his finger.

His urine turned everything it touched into gold!

“My boon!” he breathed.

He tried to urinate some more, but he was dry.

“More beer!” he yelled as he ran out of the bathroom. He downed another six beers as fast as he could, then rushed back to the bathroom to see if it would work again.

This time he peed all over the wall. I’m rich! he sprayed in large, shaky letters. He climbed up onto the sink and sprayed a happy face on the mirror. All of it turned to pure gold. He danced a little jig, then left the bathroom whistling. The fairy had said he had twelve hours—he’d been drinking for a couple hours already, so that left him with a good nine hours left to go home and turn everything to gold.

He would have whistled his way right out of the bar, but then the bouncer blocked his way.

“Before you leave, you gotta pay your tab.”

Cosmo checked his pockets.

“Hey, I don’t have any money on me—but I just quadrupled the value of your bar while I was in the bathroom.”

“No money?” growled the bouncer, hands curling into fists.

“Hold on there, big guy! Seriously—take a look at the bathroom! I just turned your urinal to gold!”

The bouncer grabbed Cosmo and hauled him outside.

“I’ll give you a demonstration!” howled Cosmo, and then his words became unintelligible under the onslaught of the bouncer’s fists.

The bouncer deposited Cosmo into the back alley when he was done.

After Cosmo regained consciousness, he threw up. Feeling guilty about the mess he’d made, he peed a little on the vomit, turning it to gold. He began to stagger home.

As he passed a street lamp, he felt something hard poking him in the back. Two men wearing ski masks were standing behind him—he  was so out of it he hadn’t even heard them approach. One of them held a gun.

“Your money or your life,” said the one with the gun.

“I don’t have any money!” cried Cosmo. “I just got beaten up because I couldn’t pay my bar tab.”

“I guess it just isn’t your day.” The gun pointed at Cosmo’s face.

Cosmo wet his pants. Or he would have—except his pee turned his underwear and pants to gold.

“Look at his pants! Is that real gold?” said one of the men, reaching forward for a grope.

“Take your pants off! The underwear too!” said the other.

Cosmo did so. The two muggers ran off with his pants and underwear, laughing madly.

He’d only gone four blocks when a policeman accosted him.

“You there—hands up. You’re under arrest for indecent exposure. You oughtta be ashamed of yourself—there’s still kids out here this time of night.”

“But I got mugged—my pants were stolen!”

“You can explain that downtown.”

In jail, Cosmo was given a pair of orange pants to wear, but that didn’t stop the three men in his cell from pawing at him.

“Hey, new boy, let’s have some fun,” the largest one said. Two of the men held Cosmo’s arms while the large one began pulling at his pants.

Cosmo kicked and screamed, but to no avail. The guards seemed completely uninterested. Soon his new orange pants were off. The men holding him were going to turn him around for the large one’s attack. He had one chance. He let loose a spray of urine, directly at Large One’s face.

Large One fell, his face frozen into a mask of pure gold. The two others, surprised, loosened their hold on Cosmo, and he ripped free of them and sprayed their faces as well. They toppled without a sound.

Hours later, Cosmo was released without charges. Upon discovering the three gold-faced felons, the guards had made Cosmo drink several gallons of water and pee all over the bodies as well. Only then, gloating over their new gold statues, did they let Cosmo go.

Cosmo ran all the way home. Checking his watch, he saw that he had minutes left. Unzipping his pants as he ran up the apartment stairs, he flung open the door.

His pee sprayed out and hit a bouquet of flowers sitting in a vase in the entryway, turning them to gold. Then the twelve hours were up.

Cosmo looked at his gold flowers and the events of the past day overwhelmed him. He’d been beaten up, almost shot, arrested and then almost raped. He hadn’t turned all his possessions to gold like he’d planned, but the fairy’s boon had saved his life and more. He decided that he would be grateful for what he had, and moreover, that he would never pee in the bushes again.

As a side bonus, the flowers were worth at least a million dollars.






COLLEEN CHEN is a suburban Californian relocated to a small hill in the countryside of Brazil. By day she raises chickens and children, and by night she usually sleeps, but she dreams of raising hell, and sometimes she writes about it. She has a fledgling website at www.colleenchen.com.