The Contract

“Here’s my peg” I say, showing him the chain at my side.

He just sits there chewing on a raw onion.

“How many sigops?” he swallows, and finally asks.

“Not many.” I say.

He glances over. “Any tainted inputs?”

“NOP.” I reply and hope I mixed enough so he can’t tell.

“That one isn’t standard”, he snorts. “I can’t give confirmation for that one.”

“But here’s my proof of work”, I try again. “and I paid fees!”

“Noncense”, he says.

“Well that’s just stellar. Classic.”, I say as I start to feel anger ripple through my core.

“I want my ASIC!” I scream. “Give it to me now! We had an agreement!”

“You git. The butterfly has it. It isn’t yours just yet. You thought that dumb contract of yours was enough?” he says.

“But I need it! To get to the moon”, I cry desperately.

“Who do you think we are? NASA? You misread the sign at the door. There’s just one A, not two. Take your bleeding heart and go bother some one else.”

I crash into him, headers first, trying to hit him with all I’ve got. He moves as fast as lightning, liquidity flowing through his veins as he reorganizes. I try to block, but it’s too difficult. My hashes all land just above the target. A ghost of my former self. The last halving took too much out of me. I pull back gasping for air, and we circle each other slowly.

This is just how Robert was pwned, I remember. He pissed off one of those bastards near his shop on silk road. What a mistake.

He looks around, making sure we’re segregated from potential witnesses and pulls out his fork. I realize I’m in deep trouble. I step further back, praying to Satoshi that its softer than it looks.

“You better go now”, he says, “before I maul your transactions and turn your outputs into dust.”

I turn around to leave, knowing that I’ve hit my block limit.

“You should address that vanity of yours. It’ll get you into serious trouble!” he snarks at me, and takes another byte from that onion.

I leave the same way I came in. That selfish double-spending bastard! I wish his pool runs dry, and all his blocks are stale and orphaned. I curse more loudly as I walk towards my car. I wish him all the ailments in the world; I hope his node’s eclipsed, his savings Goxed, his devs divided, and his BIPs bopped. If only I could make it so!

I should really go home and make sure my cold storage hasn’t thawed and that nothing’s leaked. I get into my car. There’s no gas, and I have zero cash on me. I turn on the radio and listen to the Ether. Maybe there’s a new contract I can take up. I’ll add more entropy, and try again tomorrow. There has to be someone that will take that peg.