Another day of work. Another day putting up another wall, wiping away sweat. Rummaging through his toolbox searching for drywall screws, Leo turned up a copper washer.
He regarded the shining thing.
What’s this for? Leo wondered.
The copper suggested plumbing. But he wasn’t sure.
Why had he kept this thing in his toolbox?
Very strangely, the thin washer reminded him of his childhood: the penny placed on railroad tracks that was squashed by a passing train.
Funny that he still remembered.
He had been three or four years old. He had stood near railroad tracks behind his great grandparents’ mountain cabin. Several times a day a huge freight train would rumble past.
Leo couldn’t recall the faces of his great grandparents or the cabin or anything else from that long ago time. All he could remember was the thrill of that moment when, encouraged by his father, he placed an ordinary penny on the rail. Then the sudden mighty roar of the freight train thundering dangerously past.
He remembered leaning over to pick up the transformed coin.
The penny’s one cent value had been obliterated. The copper, squashed paper thin. had become perfectly smooth and shiny. It had turned pure. A child’s penny had become infinitely more valuable.
So many years later, why did Leo still remember that penny and that train?
One was a small thing of little worth. The other, a juggernaut, almost here, quickly gone, was like the swift, inexorable passage of time.
Where was his penny now?
Leo stared at the shining copper washer in his hand.
Chuckling, he dropped it back into his toolbox.
Short Stories by Richard 