The Long Life of the Coin

“The Long Life of the Coin” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Agnes Anna Siji, Global Indian International School, Singapore.

The Long Life of the Coin

There was once a 1-rupee coin which was minted in Delhi. It was a very shiny coin. But it had only one single friend. Poor thing! They were the closest of friends. They were so close that other coins admired their friendship. One fine day they were all put into one big sack. They were then brought to a bank in Bengaluru. There the coin and its friend were given to many other customers. But it was always brought back to the bank.

But then, one fine day, there was a burglary and the coin was taken away from its friend. It was taken away by two thieves who seemed really bad and as if they have robbed many other banks. Poor coin! It was taken away along with several other people. It was then that the coin understood what life was all about. It did not know anything about life all these years. It could see through the opening sack. The robber took the poor coin along with the others into a hilly area and into a very large cave. It was a very dark and creepy cave too. Poor coin got really scared. But when he looked over his shoulders he saw that he was not the only one shivering. All the others were shivering too. He had this strange feeling that he was going to spend the rest of his life in this large, scary cave.

There was a small candle in the cave and two tough burglars were sitting around it. The coin wished if it could talk and run out of this cave so that it could reveal the names and identities of these two-bad people to the police. Two whole long months finished like this. Then one very similar day a few police entered the cave and caught the burglars. They were then put into custody. The coin then became very happy although the coin missed its friend a lot. It seemed for ages that it had seen its friend. It was soon returned to the bank. The coin then resumed its daily routines waiting for a customer to take it home. Then one day a very shabby person who did not look like a customer came into the bank and said that he needed some money from his account. Well, the coin was quite surprised when it came to knowing that he was a customer.

The banker came close to the coin and took it along with a large number of other coins. The coin thought that the customer might be good in his heart because he remembered the proverb, “Never judge a book by its cover” So, then the coin was taken along with the other coins to the man's house it was a very poor house actually. And that was when it understood that the person was not at all good in taking care of coins he was just as bad in taking care of coins as he looks. The coin then became very dull and old due to the misuse of the owner. Then one day the coin along with few other coins were taken to a shop named, ’S. R’. It was a local sweet shop. The man then gave the coin and all the other coins to the shopkeeper in exchange for a whole lot of sweets that could last him a week.

The coin was then owned by the shopkeeper. He had three kids of which two were girls and one was a boy. The man had a very nice house but after few weeks the kids along with the mother had to starve due to some issues with the amount of money the shopkeeper gets. Weeks went by like that followed by months then at the end the man went to a very wealthy person to fill his loan. That man took the coin along with him to his home where the coin was kept with all the other coins the man had. Then suddenly the coin saw its friend in the crowd. Both of them met each other again and they became close friends again.