AFTER THE DUST SETTLED (Countdown to Armageddon Book 2)
Page 20
Suddenly I was up, away from the earth, feeling fresh air for the first time in way too many years. A smallish hand scraped the dirt from my sides, and I went into a dark pocket, where I joined two other pennies. One of them was rough cut, with freshly minted features. I could not see it well in the darkness, but I could tell from the feel of it and the smell of new copper that it was recently minted. It said 1963 on its face.
Suddenly I was alive again. I was being used again in the manner in which I enjoyed, being passed from hand to hand to hand. Children buying candy. Ladies buying produce. Men buying flowers for angry wives they had slighted in various ways.
I sat in a coin tray at a 7-11 convenience store, unwanted by one customer, then picked up and used by another.
One day I was dropped at a bakery and rolled under a display case. For several months I lay, smelling the glorious smells of fresh donuts each morning, and hearing the joyous laughter of children begging their mothers for cookies.
Eventually the smells drifted away, never to return, and the laughter went away as well. For a long time I was once again alone, day and night. At least I wasn't getting rained on as I had been in Mary's front yard.
Eventually the old bakery was reopened, only it wasn't a bakery any more. It was now an insurance office, and of course the old ovens and display cases had to be removed to make room for desks and chairs and typewriters and such. As the display case was lifted off of me, a worker picked me up, dusted me off, and thrust me into a khaki pants pocket. The pompous, overbearing quarter beside me said 1981.
These days I don't go anywhere. I am confined to an airless, clear plastic pouch, which I assume is for display purposes.
On the white cardboard label attached to the pouch are the words "Lincoln Cent, 1925 P". I don't know what that means, but I do know that I am lonely. I miss being passed from hand to hand and traveling across the country and around the world. I miss being admired by children and hearing the joy in their voices as they traded me for the latest sweet thing.
It’s funny, but I also miss the grumbling of some adults who cast me into parking lots or sidewalks, as though carrying me was not worth their effort. I knew that invariably, someone would pick me back up, recognize my worth, and pass me along.
I even miss feeling the ants run across my face in Mary's yard, and shuddering each time the lawnmower passed over, ten to twelve time a year, in the season I knew as spring. I would love to break out of my plastic prison and feel the warmth of the hands. I really miss them...