300 Days of Writing
Day 23 Adventure:
I was spat out of a machine at birth. Like a bullet, I fired through the system, until I was heated, cooled, stamped, and set free into the world.
My hometown was Washington D.C., where I was given as change to a security guard working near the white house. I rolled around his pocket, befriending lint and cartons of cigarettes. I liked listening to the radio and learned all about the Watergate scandal. The year was 1972.
I was flung out of my coat pocket home when a pair of keys so rudely jostled me from my slumber. Rolling across the pavement, my small copper belly settled in a pile of trash.
A Labrador waddled towards me, sniffing the ground like a mad hound. He was a puppy, no more than a year old, and wild with excitement. The smells on my surface were too much for him, and he licked me up and swallowed me whole.
His belly was a hot and warm place and I fought my way down a wretched tunnel. Those were dark days. When I finally forced myself free, I landed in a pile of shit, praying for rain to come and wash me of the filth surrounding me.
Weeks later, I was rain-soaked and growing rusty when a child found me. “Heads side up!” they screeched at their friend. “It’s a good luck penny!” and they promptly ran inside with me.
They fished out a ceramic pig statue, and it wasn’t until it was too late that I realized what they were doing. I was slotted into a narrow hole near the pig's rear end, sending me into darkness, a world that smelled much like my birth home, tangy and metallic.
Years passed. When new comrades fell through, I welcomed them with open arms, though I had none. I showed them the ways of the pig. How we lived in a communal fashion inside the bank. We were growing in numbers.
And then, a fierce light blinded me. A fresh opening sent us cascading onto a conveyer belt. The bank’s coin machine counted us with efficiency and we were stacked into a tube of paper.
I was eventually cracked open into a register and given as change for a macchiato. The man gave me to his daughter. She clutched me in a sticky palm until they passed a wishing well.
“I want to have an adventure, please!” she whispered to me, before chucking me into the cool water of the wishing well.
Сайхан Бичээрэй!
H
Comments