Writing Prompt: The floor was covered with pennies.

Morning all, I hope you had a fabulous weekend. Mine personally went by too fast. I don’t know about you but whenever I have something that absolutely has to get done on a weekend I feel like I have been cheated out of time off. Like the necessary has eaten into my down time. I know it is ridiculous, but there we have it. Still, I am actually ready to start the day. I woke up and blinked at the alarm just seconds before it actually went off. Which means I wasn’t torn from sleep by mechanical means. It is only a few seconds, but it does mean a lot oddly. At least to me. But it is time to start the morning prompt, so it is time to stop thinking about why the brain works the way it does and simply let it do it’s thing. So timers at the ready and off we go…

I have no idea where this s leading. A part of me wants to set the timer for another fifteen minutes just so I can find out. And actually I think I may do just that.

Monday, March 25^th: The floor was covered with pennies.

The floor was covered with pennies.  At first it looked as though they were small, round copper tiles.  I bent closer and saw that each one reflected the familiar Lincoln profile.  It seemed an odd choice for tile, but I supposed it was effective.

‘Provided they added some sort of sealant.’  I imagined leaving them without some form of seal would end up with the pennies becoming green. ‘At least the old ones.’

I vaguely remembered someone mentioning that there was significantly less copper in the pennies over time and therefore they were less likely to turn green. 

‘I’d still seal them,’ I thought.  I bent down.  To my surprise, the penny I touched moved, shifting the pennies around to the side.  I frowned.  This could not be by accident.  No one dropped a sack of pennies and had them all land face up in a tile like pattern. Clearly someone had a plan, and I was disturbing it.

‘Maybe they went to pick up some sort of clear epoxy to pour over it?’  I straightened the pennies I shifted, putting them back where they were, the rows nice and straight and even, all the faces looking up and all of the noses pointed in the same direction.

I backed away not wanting to disturb the layout.  At the same time, I wondered how long it had taken to lay the pennies and make certain they were all in the perfect arrangement. ‘Far longer than I have patience for.

I stepped back over the threshold. Leaving the coins in place.  I was safely standing on the porch and could see the arrangement clearer.  It was odd.  The main space was one large room, there was a kitchen area to the back an the rest was open space, a large beam overhead showing that the structure was supported.  The entire floor was covered with pennies and as I looked, I could see that each of the stair treads were covered as well. The risers were blank, and I wondered if they were going to be left that way or if someone was going to glue pennies to those as well. 

From afar, it looked just like copper tiles.  Noe that I knew what they were, how they were aligned, the precision and the time it no doubt took, I found the pennies oddly disturbing.  I stepped back another step away from the door, the floorboards of the porch creaking under me. Despite the brief touch of the coins I found myself feeling almost sticky with the contact.  I chalked it up to finding loose change in the bottom of my purse that for some reason was always slightly sticky. 

I looked around.  No one was nearby.  I knew they soon would be as I was asked here for a meeting, but for the moment I was alone.  I slipped my hand sanitizer out of my bag and squirted a glob onto my palm. I closed the bottle and dropped it back into the bag.  The glob was far more than I needed but I felt better with it.  I massaged it into my hands and then up my arms trying to use it up.

My hands felt better but wet. I swung my arms to dry them a little and felt the alcohol evaporation cool me, even as I felt cleaner.  Knowing my nail beds and cuticles had already had several doses of hand sanitizer today and were already starting to look a little dry, I took out my tube of hand cream.  It was vanilla scented and I soon smelled a bit like a cupcake.

‘There are worse things I suppose.’  I looked around with a frown.  There was still no one in sight.  I decided to head back to the parking lot. Perhaps they were running late.  I knew I would get better reception there so I walked, taking my cell phone out as I did, more than happy to leave the pennies behind.