#33

it made him feel relevant, deliberate. it wasn't the words he was searching for. they were words attached to feelings that rarely visited.

a penny, usually dirty, such a film of dirt that he couldn't see the date. he laid it carefully on the tracks, positioning and repositioning, making it just right. the train was coming. he ran back and laid down, ear to the ground, hearing and touching and feeling, counting cars by vibration. it passed and he crawled to the tracks, searching for his penny, a stretched out caricature of lincoln. the dirt was scraped away in places, revealing shiny, beautiful copper. the prettiest coin, he thought.
he would drop it somewhere on the way home, letting someone else find it and wonder.