Dearest Elizabeth,
It brings me tremendous pain to write this letter to you.
I am ashamed that I lack the courage to relay this message to you in person, but that shame is dwarfed by the dreadful ignominy I feel when I consider the contents of this letter you are currently reading.
On with it then, before my courage fails me: I have left Birmingham. I am en route to London, and then to Southampton. From there I board a steamer bound for the New World.
I am going to America, my sweet Elizabeth. I am going there to duel a man called Elon Musk.
The only item of value that I carry with me is a small mahogany chest. Inside are two, French, flintlock dueling pistols. To my everlasting regret, I sold Father’s pocketwatch to secure this final purchase, the very pocketwatch that kept him safe during the war. I blink back tears as I write these words. I beseech you, my dearest, to recognize that these actions I have taken were not done with a spirit of nonchalance. The remainder of my possessions I leave to you and the children, please give them all my love. I know not if I shall return.
I do not expect you to understand but I implore you to at least attempt to comprehend my reasoning. This man has wronged me, Elizabeth. My cheek is reddened from the flagellation of his glove, my honor besmirched by the treachery of his conduct. His deceptions have brought ruin upon our house, the reverberations of which will be felt for generations. I do this in the name of vengeance, oh beloved wife, for us and for our posterity.
How, you may ask, was I unable to discern Elon Musk to be the vile demon I see clearly before me now? I admit that I was once susceptible to his charms. That is putting it mildly: the man was a hero to me!
Elon Musk, the great American inventor, who stepped through the veil and came back driving an electric motor car. Like a real-life Prometheus, stealing Fire from the gods! I cheered his ascendancy to greatness. I felt a kinship with him, like his triumphs were my triumphs, everybody’s triumphs. He was pulling our civilization into the future.
And so when I learned of his great enthusiasm for some newfangled system of currency I knew it must be another steppingstone forward for humanity. Anything held by Midas would certainly turn into gold! This was an entirely new type of money that was going to liberate the common man from the shackles of financial oppression. No more taxation without representation, no more prying eyes from authoritarian governments. It was a coin, not emblazoned with the visage of the Queen, but with that of a dog. Ha! That will show the old crone! And Elon Musk climbed atop a mountain and blew his mighty trump far and wide, heralding this--DOGE-coin--to the world.
“It’s an unstoppable financial vehicle that’s going to take over the world,” he proclaimed. He was like a lighthouse, guiding us through the storm.
And I believed him. Oh God, Elizabeth, I believed every word. I proudly exchanged every shilling to my name into this dog coin.
As time wore on my pride turned to concern, then to doubt, then to panic, and finally to despair. I had the sick realization that this lighthouse did not lead us to the safety of the harbor but deliberately into the treacherous rocks lurking beneath the water. What Elon Musk praised as the “future” in one breath he denounced as a “hustle” in the next. His great enthusiasm for this currency was revealed to be fraudulent, merely a cruel jape perpetrated by a titan of industry far-removed from the troubles of the common folk.
Nothing could be purchased with the dog coin, not even one of Elon Musk’s electric motorcars.
Its value plummeted, leaving our financial vessel battered and broken, strewn across the sharp rocks. This was no financial revolution, but a demonic act of piracy orchestrated by the Father of Lies.
I am a broken man, Elizabeth. Everywhere I go I carry a brick of dread in the pit of my stomach, weighing me down and stabbing my innards with its sharp corners. This dread is my constant companion, along with the mahogany chest I bought with Father’s pocketwatch. I cannot change my past but I can restore my honor.
I will travel to the City of Angels, find Elon Musk, throw these pistols down into the dirt at his feet and demand satisfaction. As a supposed gentleman, he is obliged to accept my challenge. And if not then I curse this would-be Prometheus to suffer a Promethean fate: may the birds of the sky feast upon his entrails.
Weep not for me, my love. We will meet again.
All my love,
Edmund
P.S. I leave you with my remaining 41,0665 DOGE and 60,900 CUMROCKET. May they bring you the fortune they could not provide me.
