The edges had rounded and the face was scored, the detail in relief had started to flatten out, but the date on the quarter said 1965 and Jack looked meaningfully at it in his palm. He believed in small personal totems. Objects imbued with life's energy, that carried with them the memories and promises of the past, the best of each person. And these precious symbols wriggled like fish the tighter you held them, and tried to slip away into time.
He had written her name on a piece of paper the first time he met her, when he was a teenager. A small green scrap that had been an algebra test he finished early. His mind drifted, enchanted, and he drew stylized letters in the corner of the page. By the time he had gotten it back with a grade he was sure of his devotion, and he tore her away and put her in his wallet. And long after she went away he would find the scrap, always a surprise, and would feel the powdery paper between his fingers, and put it back to be forgotten and ambush him again in the future. The slow friction in his pocket ground her name to dust, and the last time he found it the paper fell apart between his fingers.
The summer came when Jack would finally graduate college. Everyone he knew there had already completed their degree. He had gotten lost along the way, and almost failed out. It was a triumph just to finally realize how bad things had gotten, and how much despair he really felt. He sat on a low stone wall feeling paranoid, anxiety dripping down his neck and hanging in the gray air. He reached down and picked up a loose paving stone, holding it tightly before looking around, pretending to lean over to tie his shoe, and dropping the stone into his bag. He took the stone feeling like he had bitten it off with his teeth, like payback for what had been taken out of him. It was the moment he would start clawing his way back, three semesters a year, ending on this summer day. After school he had packed the stone and unpacked it, packed it again and unpacked it, packed it one more time and that was it. He never found the small granite brick again.
Jack always noticed the objects people carried as if they weighed so much more than they did. They stroked them with their thumbs, and looked at them with worried eyes. Every thing he infused with significance had gotten away from him, more things than he could even remember that were instantly special that broke or disappeared or eroded in meaning by the frequency he took them out and tried to shake loose the feelings they used to give him. And here was this quarter, which no one had ever tried to keep, as sound as it had been for almost a half century. It had hidden from its' fate in plain sight, passed from hand to hand never revealing the secrets it carried, the things it witnessed in the hundreds of people who had handled it. Holding it by the edges he closed one eye and it seemed as huge as a vault door. He concentrated on the silver face like a glittering star, setting his course in an empty night on the big black sea, and flipped the coin away from him, hearing the ringing bounce once, and then silence.
He had written her name on a piece of paper the first time he met her, when he was a teenager. A small green scrap that had been an algebra test he finished early. His mind drifted, enchanted, and he drew stylized letters in the corner of the page. By the time he had gotten it back with a grade he was sure of his devotion, and he tore her away and put her in his wallet. And long after she went away he would find the scrap, always a surprise, and would feel the powdery paper between his fingers, and put it back to be forgotten and ambush him again in the future. The slow friction in his pocket ground her name to dust, and the last time he found it the paper fell apart between his fingers.
The summer came when Jack would finally graduate college. Everyone he knew there had already completed their degree. He had gotten lost along the way, and almost failed out. It was a triumph just to finally realize how bad things had gotten, and how much despair he really felt. He sat on a low stone wall feeling paranoid, anxiety dripping down his neck and hanging in the gray air. He reached down and picked up a loose paving stone, holding it tightly before looking around, pretending to lean over to tie his shoe, and dropping the stone into his bag. He took the stone feeling like he had bitten it off with his teeth, like payback for what had been taken out of him. It was the moment he would start clawing his way back, three semesters a year, ending on this summer day. After school he had packed the stone and unpacked it, packed it again and unpacked it, packed it one more time and that was it. He never found the small granite brick again.
Jack always noticed the objects people carried as if they weighed so much more than they did. They stroked them with their thumbs, and looked at them with worried eyes. Every thing he infused with significance had gotten away from him, more things than he could even remember that were instantly special that broke or disappeared or eroded in meaning by the frequency he took them out and tried to shake loose the feelings they used to give him. And here was this quarter, which no one had ever tried to keep, as sound as it had been for almost a half century. It had hidden from its' fate in plain sight, passed from hand to hand never revealing the secrets it carried, the things it witnessed in the hundreds of people who had handled it. Holding it by the edges he closed one eye and it seemed as huge as a vault door. He concentrated on the silver face like a glittering star, setting his course in an empty night on the big black sea, and flipped the coin away from him, hearing the ringing bounce once, and then silence.
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