See link below for original (only 350 words).
http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/story165.pdf
If you read the original, you'll get some chocolate. Maybe. If I remember. Not you Craig, you're paid to read, buy your own chocolate.
I've re-interpreted The Stolen Pennies from a different perspective.
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If I could feel, I would feel the terror of
feeling nothing in the pit of my stomach. I'm walking through my own personal
ghost town, dark deserted streets, air as warm and thick as the blood of a
hunted deer on a cold morning; steaming, sticky. Big brick buildings towering,
here I am once again, stood at the foot of a back street leading me home.
Clouds separate like milk in cola, so unpleasant, bitty, a dingy creamy kind
of grey that slowly parts, revealing a tired blue sky. At least the trees are
blossoming. It's almost noon and I've been walking. Father will be seated at
the head of the table with mother by his right, the twins together to his left,
the seat next to mother will be empty for I no longer eat there, I no longer
eat. The gate’s chipped black paint, scarce covers the rusted metal, that which
humid weather makes possible to smell a smell like the taste of batteries on a
wet tongue. I tip toe to take a hold of the door handle, and twist. They'll be
as I remember them, as I’ll always remember them, as I remember us at noon most
lunch times. I’ll gently push open the door and no one will see me.
Wait. There’s someone in my seat, someone I
do not recognize, a blip in the corner of my dead eyes. If I could feel I would
feel the faith a single coin carries as it’s tossed into the depths of a
wishing well. I walk with purpose, but without control. Driven by a lingering
memory filling me with unrest, I’m just a far-gone conscious floating through familiar
motions, experiencing neither time nor presence. I notice the stranger notice
me, I feel his life looking into me, he sees me! He sees my deathly-pale skin,
my snow-white clothes. I enter my emptied room. I sit on the floor and hover my
eyes over the wooden boards beneath my cold feet, unable to feel the warmth, yet
able to remember it. The noon sunlight, dim as it may be, reflects the glint of
two pennies, beneath the boards I look until I see. I see, if only I could
reach them, I should never have dropped them between these cracks, fumble as I
might with my tiny fingers, I cannot reach them. The sun disappears behind the
same cloud as always, I rise to my feet and I leave. The stranger did nothing
and once more I’m stood at the foot of this forsaken street, in this purgatory.
If I could feel I would feel the anguish of
a burning hole in a confused heart; the depth of a damned soul in a lifeless oblivion.
I open the door, there he is again, the blip in the corner of my dead eyes, the
stranger who is my hope, of change, of a possibility beyond this reality. I’m
looking through the cracks in the floor, trying to push my fingers through, in
my quiet desperation I fail to notice how long the strange man has been
standing at the door, watching. I cannot understand what happened between the
moment I looked up into his eyes, him down into mine, and now (whatever now is).
I’m left with the lasting memory of one of the last days of my short life, the
afternoon my mother came to me and took my hands in hers, she put two shiny
pennies in my palms and smilingly told me to go to the poor man who sits by the
railway station, “give him these pennies”. I think to myself ‘I can save for a cake’. On the way to the poor man, I taste the thought of the
deliciously sweet, moist sponge cake I could have for myself. I squeeze the
pennies tightly in my tiny fist, the thought releases from my mind and I approach
the poor man, I take his hand in mine and drop the pennies in his palm. And if
I could feel something, anything, I would feel nothing but the peace of a
silenced soul.
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