Enjoy!
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An Unfamiliar Coin - for Emily (literally)
July 22, 2013
A young man went walking on his lunch break. On some days he studied. On some days he worked. But it did not matter what he was doing this day because what matters is that he went for a walk.
On his walk, he saw the many familiar buildings in the familiar neighborhoods. He decided--or maybe it was decided for him--that he would venture out of these familiar places find unfamiliar places. At first, this was rather difficult.
The young man at first retraced the steps to his favorite cafeteria where he often lunched. Through the broad front window he saw many familiar people eating familiar foods. A young woman waved at him and her company saw him and also waved. He waved back, smiling but not cheerful, and continued on his way.
Next, the young man walked to the market where he often bought his dinner as he left from his workplace or from his university. He saw the shelves of familiar boxes displaying familiar images of what was inside. There were Gala apples and Bartlett pears, the bunches of carrots and stacks of zucchini, there were tidy bunches of fresh herbs and a fridge with glass bottles each with its own distinct but familiar flavor. The shopkeeper noticed him watching through the window. The young man nodded at the shopkeeper and walked on.
The young man then strolled through a park where he often read the newspaper in the morning and would, from time to time, read a novel in the clear afternoon light. Familiar trees cast familiar shadows on the passers-by, on the walkway and the central plaza, on the grass and flower beds. Even the strangers in the park were familiar and even the fountain in the center of the park seemed to cast the same flickering light patterns that he had seen so many times before.
As he left the park, the young man was disparaged. He felt that everything he was seeing, everywhere he was walking through was what he had always seen. He worried that it was all he would ever see. As he walked he tried looking up at the sky and became dizzy. He could feel people walk past in the disturbances of their wakes. Then, he looked down at the ground and walked looking at the ground.
He lost track of how long he had been walking when he noticed that the shoes of the other pedetrian were rather strange. Rather than the laces and shiny leather he was used to, they seemed soft or jeweled or peculiarly colored. The young man was suddenly anxious and was not sure if he wanted to look up.
Suddenly, a flash of light caught his eye. It was off to the left and he darted toward it. In doing so he heard the complaints of the pedestrians around him, though he paid them little notice. He picked up the flashing object and it was a bright, silver coin unlike any coin he had seen.
The coin had seven sides and either face of the coin was a detailed portrait. One side showed a young man who seemed deep in thought who looked out of the coin at the holder. On the opposite face was an elderly queen, arranged with jewels and a cloak. The queen looked out to the right as if she saw something ahead of her.
The young man held the coin for some time. There wasn't any writing he recognized on it, though there were small symbols on it, and he wandered what it was worth. After inspecting one face, then the other, then the edges of the coin which had a smooth edge to them before the seven rounded corners, he looked around.
Indeed, the people around him were strange to him. They wore bright clothing with odd accoutrements like feathers, tails, halos, horns, wings. As he watched them, he saw that they moved differently, too. Rather than the smooth rise and fall of heads in a crowd, they seemed to bob and weave and duck to their own rhythm. It was hard to make sense of how each person moved. They seemed distant even when they were close. And when they were close, they slipped into the tumultuous crowd quickly and were lost to his sight.
The buildings, too, were unfamiliar. He could not exactly make out how, but it seemed that their peaks were too high, that their bases were too narror, the middles too broad, the doorways a myriad of shapes and sizes. Above him, he also saw stars alighting in the sky despite the sun being just past its zenith.
The young man was still anxious about this unfamiliar place. He had so wanted to find something unlike where he had been and had, after some searching, found it. In finding it he felt distant and alone. The unfamiliar people around him did not look his way, though he believed that they could sense him. His strangeness to them, he realized, must be almost as profound as their strangeness to him.
After looking, he listened. He listened to the strange striding sounds--hooves and faint wafting of wings and soft-skinned footfalls--that formed a peculiar orchestra all around him. He wanted to listen to it, but it inflamed his anxiousness. So he closed his eyes and he strained his ears. He also smelled the strange smells of this unfamiliar people, this unfamiliar place. People brushed passed him and he felt fur and feathers and fishy scales and slimy salamander flesh and craggy lizard skin.
The young man thought of the familiar cafeteria the smells and tastes of its dishes. He thought of the feel of a soft, forgiving pear in his hand and how the sweetness was hinted but not given by its texture. He thought of the park with its dappling sunlight and the young families happy to enjoy an afternoon, of the children playing with balls and frisbees or sipping from juiceboxes with cartoons emblazoned on them. He thought of his university and its library smelling of old pages and of his workplace and the pleasant tapping clatter of pens and keys and heels.
He thought of these things when he heard the ring of a bell. The bell was not at first familiar, but unlike everything else it became so. He opened his eyes to the cacophonous strangeness and was not surprised that it was as it was when he had closed his eyes. In the distance, straight ahead, was a phonebooth. And the phonebooth was ringing.
Slipping between the strange people in this strange place he worked to get to the phone. Each ring sounded increasingly familiar and he worried that it would its last. He reached and stepped and danced through the crowd. The phone booth was not enclosed in a glass box, but was open to the air and covered by a small roof. He picked up the phone and called into it.
He heard a click. He called into it but heard nothing. A low, endless hum emanated fromt he receiver. The young man slumped to the floor still holding the phone.
Just as the peculiar surroundings surged back to fill his faded hope, he held up the coin. He looked at its two faces, and its seven-edges, and then back at the phonebooth. There was a slot on the front of the phone, though no numbers anywhere on it. The slot was situated such that the coin went in on a flat side, not on its edge.
Holding the coin in front of him, he gingerly kissed the queen on one side and slipped it into the slot. He waited...
And waited...
And waited some more.
Just as he was about to give up, a woman's voice said through the line:
"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"
"I... I'm sorry?"
"Don't be sorry. What do you have to say for yourself?" The woman was spoke with a sharp tongue, but one that had been earned through experience and wisdom.
"I'm trying to get back home."
"And you're looking for help, I assume?"
"Yes. Yes, I guess I am."
"Well you did it wrong, young man."
"I did what wrong?"
"You called me! I can tell you things but I can't help you do them!"
"I'm sorry?"
"As you should be. I deserve my rest. Especially from silly young men like yourself."
"So you can't help me?"
"Well, I can do one thing for you," and with a click the coin spilled out below the coin slot that the young man had not at first seen.
"Hello? Are you still there?" He asked, then tapped frantically on the hook. The woman was gone. He picked up the coin and flipped it around, looking at each side. He looked at the young man deep in thought. He slipped it into the coin slot and waited.
And waited...
And waited some more.
And just as he was becoming worried all over again, the line picked up.
"Well it is about time."
"About time for what?"
"For you to figure it out."
"To figure what out?"
"The coin! What a numbskull."
"But," and the young man had idea, "but you looked deep in thought on the coin."
"Well what else am I going to do until someone calls me?" The man on the other line exclaimed. "I've been watching and waiting for you to get give me a call. Who do you think made the phone ring?"
"I... I don't know. I just figured it was ringing."
"Just figured it was ringing? A phone doesn't just ring! It rings for a reason."
"And you're that reason?"
"No you nitwit, you are!"
"I'm the reason the phone was ringing?"
"Well, it is if you have a job for me to do. I'm more of a doer than a talker, so let's get to doing!"
"I want to get home."
"You do? Well that sounds like something for you to do, not for me to do."
"But I don't know how!"
"There's the hitch, isn't there?" The man on the other end sighed. "Well, I guess you'll just have to follow me." And with that, the line clicked and the coin slid out.
Instead of the coin catching on the lip as it had before, it slid down with such rapidity that it hit the lip and hopped out of the catch. The young man, not sure what to do, dropped the phone and began dashing between the legs of the people trying to catch the coin. It rolled unevenly on its seven edges, but with surprising speed. More than once it looked as if it were about to fall on a face when some hoof or claw or foot would tap it along and it just moved along in its own awkward and unpredictable way.
The young many was leaned over trying to keep an eye on the coin and pumping into the hips and knees of the passers-by. He kept reaching out for the coin but it kept sliding just away from him or getting kicked or nudged in the opposite direction. He felt dizziness overtake him.
He kept after the coin, his footing almost sliding out from under him. Then, just as he was about slump over and collapse on the sidewalk, he snatched up the coin! It felt warm and solid in his hand and suddenly heavy. The weight dragged him down and he held onto the coin just hard enough to keep it from slipping out of his hand.
He wheezed on the ground holding the coin in his fist, his eyes closed. He wandered what his next step would be, how he might get back to the university, to the office, to the cafeteria or market or park when he heard a familiar voice above him.
"Are you alright?"
He peeked one eye open. His hair had fallen in front of his face, but even still he could see the familiar young woman from the cafeteria who had offered him a seat at the table. She leaned over and her hair made little bars around him and he thought of the willow tree in the park that he liked to sit under during light rain showers. He saw her eyes, brown with just a hint of green, and they reminded him of the bartlett pears he could smell in the market, with their light sweetness like honeysuckle.
"Are you alright?" she asked again. She straightened up and offered her hand.
"Y-yeah. I guess I am." He took her hand and she firmly pulled him up. He saw that her familiar compatriots were down the sidewalk looking back at them.
"Well, that was a bit of a spill."
"I," and he felt the coin, still faintly warm, in his hand, "I dropped a coin. I guess it was getting away from me."
"It must be a valuable coin."
"I guess it is." And he opened his hand and showed it to her.
"That is a strange coin." She traced its outline with her finger. The young man's face was upturned. "Where did you find it?"
"You know," he said smiling, "I don't really know."
"Well I'm glad you didn't lose it." She placed her hand under his and eased his fingers around the coin. "Hold onto it next time."
"I'll try."
She smiled. He smiled back.
"Are you walking back with us?" she asked.
"I guess I am," he said. And they walked up to her familiar friends and they walked the familiar streets of the town.
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