Wattpad Block Party - Winter Edition III

LynnS13 Presents: Tokens

Tokens

by LynnS13

"I'm asking you to take this in good faith. It will cost you only a meager two dollars. I never take more than what I need. Right now, I just need a splash of liquor, one of those little bottles they sell for trifle change at the corner store... In exchange, I will give you a ticket to a world of wonder; a passage to multiple possibilities."

I scanned his face, tired of bad attempts at theater. I was doing a little bit of acting myself, trying to conceal tediousness. Barely keeping it together, my lips were already curling into a patronizing smirk. No one's fault but mine. It was my idea to walk into that rainbow striped tent with nothing to offer but a table, a wobbly stool and a fortune teller who didn't hide the fact that he had seen better days.

"Good Sir! This is a bargain! Two bucks for such a fortune. I wonder what's your cover fee for guessing at next week's lottery numbers... Perhaps a fiver?"

There was a slight trace of happiness in his voice. Not the prelude to banter or mockery, I would have recognized it right away. It was a minimal stretch of the pitch, very much like a child who finally finds an adult willing to hear his stories without suspending disbelief.

"Lottery numbers? Next week? I can't tell. No one ever asks for those and as I said, I only require the payment I need at the time the question is asked. And besides..." the fortune teller dug deep in his pocket for my prize as he spoke. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't tell you. Not now. Everyone gets one question to ask and I have but one answer to give, in the course of both our lifetimes. Didn't you read the flyer? I'm nothing if not an honest man!" He waited for a heartbeat so that I could acknowledge said honesty with a shrug of shoulders.

"And here it is!" His jolly mood made my indifference the more obvious, but the man couldn't care less. "A token of good luck, a life of fulfillment and never ending bounty." His hands were dry and his skin as thin and crumpled as tissue paper. The fortuneteller placed a coin upon my own stretched hand. It was a token indeed, weathered by age. The coin was no bigger than those old New York subway fares. On one side, it had a circle intersecting with a bigger sphere, on the other, a message then illegible, but that has grown easier to read through the years.

When on this piece, you cast an eye, think of the man that is not nigh.

"Now, all I need is my payment. Two dollars." The fortuneteller licked his lips and cast his eyes aside. He knew what my answer would be, because I made it so painfully evident.

I was young then, but that was no excuse. I have seen people who are given to kindness in their youth. I was petulant, moody and cruel, ready to blame others by my changes of mind. I had walked into that tent of my own volition, eager to see what the little man had to say and them I found it equally amusing to chastise him for not living up to my standards.

I should've seen that he was lonely and had a hundred reasons to be tired. More than money, he needed a friend to pay for a shot. I imagine that many a soul had gone unmarked, in and out of that carnival tent after sharing a story and paying for a wish...