bebek rewel

The Tale of a Nickel

Juga pernah diterbitin di NTU Tribune (koran kampus).

Versi Indonesianya sila klik di sini. 
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Ugh, once again I fell onto the street. It is my destiny to become a tiny little thing instead of something people would miss, of course. I am only a little 5 cents coint. Boy, that sounds like a kid without any special talent. Tragic isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s the truth.

Sometimes they treat me like an unwanted thing. They try to get rid of me as soon as they could. Like, if they buy anything worth 10 cents, they prefer to throw 2 coints of 5 cents away from their wallet and keep the 10 cents instead.

Or people would easily say, “no need lah” or “keep the change” rather than keep me for themselves… Ya Ya Ya, I knew, 5 cents coin is worth nothing. It can’t be compared with the big ol’ 1 dollar coin who could buy candies or snack all by himself. Just what CAN you buy with a 5 cents coin anyway?

My tiny little size was also the one thing that caused me a long unfortunate-sad-miserable story. Oh, it was your common old story. A 5 cents coin flew down when someone opened his/her wallet. Lying helplessly in the floor, they just left it. Yes, they just left it like that!! It was just like what happened to me just now. After falling from an old lady’s wallet, I watched helplessly at the feet passing me by. Sometimes I got kicked or was stepped on. The most annoying things was when someone just threw me a glance and passed me saying “Bah… only 5 cents coin…” with a clearly degrading tone!!! It hurt my dignity!! I know that I’m just a lowly 5 cents but I am also money, so how about a little bit of respect!!!

Ah… I felt a little hand closing over me!! It’s a nice warm little hand that lifted me up carefully from the floor and placed me on his palm. Finally… someone gave me attention although he was only a little kid. His sparkling happy eyes gave me joy. It has been quite a long time since someone gave me that kind of look. It was true what the other coins said: that children were wiser than adults in terms of appreciating something.

He took something from his pocket, looked at both his hands one at a time. His smile was getting wider. He moved me to his other hand, then put me in his pocket.

Cling… Cling……

Ouch… my body hit something hard… wait a sec… it sounded like… a coin? It seemed that fate has once again reunited me with another 5 cents coin.

“Ouh Hi! Hallo!!!” I heard a friendly greeting. “My name is gor, what is your name?

“Er… gor too. What year did your born? Mine was 1995.”

“Ha!!! Mine was 1990”, I could hear the smile in the tone of the voice. “Looks like you have to change your name.”

“Ok…ok… now my name is wu,” I said reluctantly. It is a rule in the coin world that we always have a name taken from different languages around the world. But those names have to represent our value. I lost cound of how many times I changed my name… lima,  gor, five, cinq and many more I can’t remember. If you find another coin which has the same name like yours, then the younger coin has to change its name.

We kept rocking and hitting against each other. It felt like the boy was running and had stopped somewhere. Suddenly, his little hand took us from his dark pocket and brought us to an open and bright place. He showed us to a Seven-eleven cashier. Apparently he wanted to buy a candy. He looked disappointed when the cashier said that me and gor couldn’t buy anything in the store by ourselves. He put us back to his pocket and slowly walked away.

Gor took a deep breath, “It seems that this boy doesn’t understand money values.” It looked sadly at me. “Wu, do you think that he would still pick us up if he knew that we are only worth 5 cents?”

I didn’t answer. Silence became our language. Only the sound of our body hitting each other could be heard.

Cling… Cling……

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