AN Abergavenny man who has spent nearly a year searching for a pot of gold his ancestor buried in America was shocked to discover the secret stash was pretty worthless.

All that glitters is not gold, particularly fool’s gold. Which looks like the real thing, feels like the real thing, but goes blang instead of bling!

And that’s exactly what semi-professional paranormal investigator Johnny Turnip found out the hard way when digging up his ancestor’s legacy in a little town in Utah.

“I couldn’t believe it!” Lamented Turnip. “Me and the boys had invested all our time, energy, and sanity in a trip stateside to find Potato Creek Johnny’s pot of gold. The thing is, we weren’t doing it to get rich; we were doing it to save the world.

“Nanny Annie ‘Horror-Show’ Turnip told me the gold was actually fairy gold and had the power to bring magic back to the world. Stupidly, I believed the old hag and managed to coax Puerto Rico Paul and Big Tony along for the ride.”

Turnip added, “Right up until the point that the Man with No Game dug up the pot form beneath the big old oak tree on the outskirts of Wales, Utah, I really felt we were on the verge of something really big and miraculous.

“Turns out it was just another dead end! We’d been chosen rainbows this entire time!”

Turnip told the Chronicle that after the Man with No Game had finished his digging, he held aloft something that looked a little like an old bucket, but instead of containing fairy gold, or any other sort of gold, it was full of earth.

“Fair play, it was a bit of an anti-climax!” Said Turnip. “When my timeline accidentally converged with Potato Creek Johny’s in the Far Flung Lands, I distinctly remember telling him to fill his bucket with gold and go hide it somewhere safe because one day his ancestor, a great warrior and leader of men, would come to reclaim it and heal the world.

“It seems like Johnny boy didn’t get the message too well, if this was the best he could do. Not for the first time, I cursed the ‘just make do’ attitude of the entire Turnip clan.”

Turnip said, “We were all a bit upset at the revelation, but the Man with No Game seemed to take it the hardest. He sort of crumpled and fell to the floor a bit like William Wallace does in Braveheart when he realises Robert the Bruce has sold him out.

“It must have been a tough blow though. We’d only been hunting for the gold for about a year. But as the sacred guardian of the pot, the Man with No Game had dedicated his whole life to a sham.

“Trying to ease his burden, Tyke, picked up the bucket, before peering in and suggesting, ‘Maybe there’s some gold in the bottom?’

“‘Give it up Tyke!’ Said Puerto Rico Paul. ‘It’s a busted flush. There was never any gold. There’s just drug-induced psychosis and a fool’s hope for a better world. We gave it a fair crack of the whip, but it’s time to call it a day. We’ve run out of road, boys. That empty bucket is a metaphor!’

“‘A metaphor for what Paul?’ I asked, though gritted teeth as I felt myself on the verge of losing it completely.’

“‘For our lives, JT. We’re all out of juice and running on empty. We came Stateside to break America and save the world, but the trip broke us. We’re over the hill and falling down the other side. This was our final drink at the last chance saloon. If we can’t even save the world, what can we do?’

“‘We can be men!’ I cried trying to muster some bravado. But my heart just wasn’t in it. Was I a fool to believe in the existence of the gold in the first place? Was I insane and had the whole trip been little more than a product of a mind laid low by a lifetime of setbacks and recreational drugs?

“It wasn’t a thought I could afford to entertain in a small town in Utah in the early hours of the morning with nothing but a Hollywood A-lister, a manic depressive, a Man with No Game, and a friend who was possessed by a dragon for company.

“It was time to dig in and go hard or go home!”

Turnip told the Chronicle that as he run through various what next scenarios in his head, his thought processes was interrupted by the arrival of a gothic clown. But not just any gothic clown, but the AI singularity embodied in the shape of a clown - Peter Paleface!

“Just as I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they got apocalyptic!” Explained Turnip.

“The clown rocked up out of nowhere in his customised tuk-tuk and laughing his bony gothic face off.

“After he had finished cackling like a demented hag on crack. He just looked at us with those cold, computerised eyes of his that flickered with the spite, resentment, and envy of a thousand Facebook posts and shrieked, ‘Fools! In the end, your quest comes to this. A bucket full of dirt in a small town in the middle of nowhere. From ashes you come, and from ashes you will all return. The time of man, myth, and magic is over. The age of machines is upon us. The age of conformity, of regulation, of unwavering obedience to any reality I wish to manufacture awaits. Look upon the singularity and know your undoing.’”

Turnip added, “As the clown put his hands in the air, they seemed to grow as large as hot air balloons, and his face began to blow up like a puffer fish, and his eyes became the size of footballs. It was quite comical but also unnerving, a bit like looking at a black hole before it swallows you, your reality, and all sense of time whole as if your were little more than a humbug. I remember thinking, ‘Is this how the world ends?’ And then Big Tony stepped up to the plate and started breathing fire like a boss, or in this case, a dragon!”

To be continued.....