Two diamond rings valued at over one hundred thousand dollars had long since lost their sentimental value. The rings had lain in wait in a box inside a musty shed at the storage depot.
The rings were spoils from a murder and their thief, in no hurry to sell, stored his items, far from the bloodbath, until the time was right. He didn’t need the money, he just loved the adventure. And with many storage locations at his disposal, his treasures and opportunities grew.
But not all items in storage come from crime. Some are stored for more ordinary reasons. They spend much of their lives waiting—sometimes they’re collected, but more often they’re released when the storage fees go unpaid. And when that happens, filled boxes are packed into containers where their fate is left to an auctioneer.
‘One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure’ has long been the mantra of many a collector. So, when the travelling auctioneer is summoned to town, he attracts people who are more than just curious—they’re manic. The bidders share a common trait: an obsession, whether it’s for particular items like coins, records, machinery, or simply the thrill of outbidding someone else. And a good auctioneer knows this well. These wizards of the gavel have accumulated a lifetime of hood winks.
Mr. Fred ‘Bellylaugh’ Lauchlan, the auctioneer, had built relationships with storage companies nationwide. Some loved him; others didn’t. But he always got the job done. Every now and again, he’d be called upon to auction off the abandoned—goods that often reflected families in ruin, their former treasures exiled by heartbreak. To some, auctioneers were nothing more than grave robbers, feeding off the corpse of human dignity.
Like a funeral procession, the containers were trucked to the showgrounds and circled around one of the massive sheds. Here, Bellylaugh—the maestro of auctioneering—performed his magic. He had perfected his art and, like a rock star, often worked his audience into a frenzy. He had an uncanny knack for introducing the right item at the right moment. His gesticulations, while appearing random, were in fact carefully orchestrated. You don’t bring out diamond earrings right after a senior’s walking frame; you ease them in—unless, of course, you want a sudden shift. But only a true virtuoso could pull that off. And Bellylaugh was just that.
His success came from making people feel special. Especially those with money. Whilst most thought that a rich person was someone who wore designer clothes, Bellylaugh knew that a millionaire might wear work shorts and an old T-shirt. So he treated each person with respect, unless their attire or persona reeked of poverty. And his special gift for being able to create a long-winded belly-laugh at random became his famous calling card. Especially by those who stood to gain a highly valued item.
Occasionally, he’d spot the tears of a bidder—someone who, he suspected, might try to reclaim a piece of their past, desperate for a last reprieve of sanity and not yet ready to release those invisible bonds of sentiment. Perhaps whispers from the grave had haunted their sleep, urging them to retrieve a mother’s handmade quilt or a father’s cherished photo album. With a nod and a wink to his sidekicks, he’d help them spend more than the item was worth. A person in need, he knew, made a far better bidder than a casual buyer. And, of course, a hearty belly-laugh as he’d slam down his victorious hammer as a sign of the auctioneer’s power.
At regular auctions, the seller reaps the biggest profit. But when storage depots clear out abandoned goods, it’s the auction house—and a shrewd auctioneer—who stands to profit the most. The storage bastards, as Bellylaugh liked to call them, made their money off fees and didn’t want valuable space wasted on freeloaders. So, they’d sell off containers of random boxes, often without the faintest idea of what was inside. But a good auctioneer did his research and knew the worth of every piece. Especially Bellylaugh. He was cunning.
To keep prices high, Bellylaugh planted shills in the crowd who would inflate genuine bids with a rehearsed nod or gesture. Making the shill look savvy and well-informed often benefited him—and theirs—since everyone got a cut. And this arrangement worked both ways; those who failed to perform were left stranded, abandoned in a small town to find their own way home. When the winning bid soared high, however, they all rejoiced. Incentives worked every time. Auctioneering was his life. He even categorised his girlfriends like his auction items—‘one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure’—a phrase he’d remind them of if they ever got snarky. They despised him—but he paid well. Sometimes.
In towns hungry for entertainment, Bellylaugh never disappointed. Like royalty, the showman arrived in style—sometimes on a discarded float. Most storage depots had an old float or two gathering dust, and while he loved his grand entrance, the crowd was there for bargains, not theatrics. Few roared with delight at Bellylaugh’s showmanship; they just wanted the auction to start. Bellylaugh knew he was a character, but he also knew he wasn’t the star attraction—it was the orphaned items released from storage that drew the hungry, the salivating, and the gullible. Regardless of their gullibility, they were all bargain hunters, ready to pounce on the spoils of others, not fully appreciating that Bellylaugh was there to drain every breath of life from their wallets.
The diamond rings were about to have yet another incarnation—a curious fate for jewels once steeped in death—as the small plane circled the town, its aerial banner shouted ‘Auction Today’. Like many times before, Bellylaugh sat in the plane with his harness attached, ready to make his big ‘ta-da’. Today, the float would be himself—he would float down to the crowd, giving them what they wanted: a good belly-laugh, with sweets dropping to the children below. He squeezed his gigantic frame out of the plane’s door, training his sights on the large X painted on the showground oval. The X was his guide, just to the right of the auction shed. He pulled the cord and let his mind drift, thinking about the diamond rings he’d secured in his pocket. He’d taken them out of storage the day before and fastened them carefully on his person. If he worked the crowd right, those two dazzling stones would more than cover the rental on the auction shed, the plane, the hotel, staff fees—and maybe even a new car.
As Bellylaugh drifted toward the ground, his mind wandered. He recalled the elderly couple he’d bludgeoned with his steel-reinforced gavel ten years before, and the added thrill of finding the diamond rings among their possessions. Today, he felt no regret—he had long since perfected the art of meditation and the banishing of negative thoughts. Those diamond rings held sentimental value. They represented his first double murder, a turning point that changed his life for the better. Instead of the risks involved in robbing a home, he’d discovered it was far easier to dispose of the occupants first. Making it appear like a robbery gone wrong led the police in confusing directions—he only ever took a few select items. And with the elderly, no one ever knew what hidden valuables they might still possess. He had perfected the art of murder first, pilfering second. This method required much less planning and carried little chance of being caught. Yes, those diamond rings were special. His current girlfriend knew about the rings, but not their history. In her naivete, she believed he might one day give them to her and always agreed to his nightmarish bouts of ‘slap and tickle’ in her quest for marriage—and she was determined. But this time, she would be rewarded. At the end of today’s auction, he planned to propose to her right there in front of the bidders. He was, after all, a romantic in disguise.
Lost in his cloud-nine descent, Bellylaugh hadn’t noticed that his chute had failed to open. Not even the familiar ‘snap’ of the release brought him back to reality. He was lost in overthinking the positive and underthinking the negative. But his panic arrived too late. His gesticulating showed to the crowd below that there was a problem and many of them feared that the auction might not go ahead as planned. He hit the roof of the auction shed at two hundred kilometres per hour. It was his most spectacular arrival ever.
In the hysteria, Bellylaugh’s staff were thrown into confusion, and joined the stampeding locals who pilfered anything of value.
Even one of his trusted shills rifled through his mangled body, her reward shimmering as she ripped the rings from his pocket. The passionate sex that morning had been well worth it—‘why not,’ she thought. It was to be his last climax, anyway. Her parachute modifications had worked and the rings were hers. She booted his corpse and escaped with a glint in her eye.
Freed from Bellylaugh, the rings also sparkled in anticipation—hungry, as always, for yet another tragic ending.
Hahaha, that twist gave me a belly laugh!
Wonderful 👏👏👏👏👏