A Touch of Gold

I sifted through the medical spaghetti and realized only one tube was actually attached to me. The only thing I had to worry about was that one line, which led to a bag of glucose hooked up to a tall, stainless steel pole. I moved across the narrow bed carefully until I could throw my legs off the side next to the pole. I used one hand to propel myself off the bed while the other hand held onto the glucose feed and moved the pole closer to me.

The tile floor was cold under my bare feet, and my knee, which hadn’t hurt since I’d woken up, started hurting again. It was my storm knee. It always hurt right before a storm. Gramps said that was because I’d injured it surfing in the rough waves off the Atlantic side of Duck. He said it was my weak knee because it was my favorite to injure.

Ignoring the pain, I rolled the pole closer to me as I got off the bed and struggled to keep my hospital gown from exposing my rear. Why did they always show people in the movies with the backs of these stupid gowns closed? Why did they create them that way in the first place?

The voices from the coin kept me on track, whispering their secrets as I gingerly began to cross the room. Looking back on it, I wonder why I didn’t think I’d lost my mind. Maybe being raised as a finder of lost things made anything seem possible. Whatever the case, I didn’t question my thirst for the coin’s knowledge, and kept moving slowly across the tile.

I was nervous that one of the nurses would come in and check on me again. They might keep me from reaching the coin and that wouldn’t do. It was the only thing in my mind, and the closer I got to that bundle of clothes, the more important it seemed.

One of the wheels on the pole squeaked at every other revolution. I cringed each time. What would happen if I couldn’t reach the coin? What if someone else got to it before me? My brain buzzed with the whispers coming from it. What were they saying? If I held it in my hand again, would I be able to hear them more clearly?

I could always say I was trying to reach the bathroom, I realized. They didn’t have to know my real purpose. If I never told anyone about the voices in the coin, I’d never have to share it with anyone.

I finally reached the chair and ruthlessly shoved the bag of clothes on the floor so I could collapse where they’d been. I hadn’t known it would be such an ordeal moving a few feet. I was exhausted. Apparently being partially blown up took a lot out of a person.

But there was the coin to consider, with all of its secrets to learn. Carefully I lifted the bag from the floor with my free hand. I could smell smoke even before I took out the clothes. As I reached in and touched my Duck T-shirt, my fingers began to tingle. It was the same feeling I always experienced when I first touched someone to help them look for something. But I’d never felt it this strong when touching an inanimate object. What was going on?

My jeans and T-shirt, even my underwear, were full of tiny holes. The sensation of touching all of them at once made me drop them on the floor. The feelings were overpowering, threatening to swamp me with emotions I couldn’t control.

But I had to have the coin. I put my hand more firmly on my jeans, forcing myself to ignore the sensation, focusing on the coin that was still in my pocket. I never stopped to think it might not be there. I knew it was there.

I grasped the coin and let the jeans drop. They didn’t matter. The dull gold coin gleamed in the palm of my hand, the bathroom nightlight illuminating it. I held it for an instant, admiring its form and weight, and then my head exploded with a thousand images.

I saw everything from the moment the coin was made, hundreds of years ago. It was stamped and put into a wooden chest with hundreds more like it. The chest was sealed and put on a ship. The rough seas scraped the chest back and forth across the bottom of the ship. It seemed as though it might be lost to the Atlantic in a terrible storm.

But other hands took it away from the ship it had sailed on. Rough fingers moved through the treasure, counting and admiring. The gold was new then, shining brightly even in the dull lantern light.

That wasn’t the end of its journey. The storm that had ravaged the coast caught up with the buccaneer who’d stolen the chest, sending the groaning vessel into the unkind embrace of the icy sea.

The currents and the years moved the partially raided chest closer and closer to shore. Once again the sun shone on the coin, now crusted with saltwater and seaweed. Still locked in the chest, it had finally reached land and waited to be found by the next person who would admire and covet it.

A man approached it on the sandy beach, stopping to look at the treasure that waited for him that morning. He glanced around, and seeing only gulls as his company, he picked up the treasure chest and stalked down the shore to his home.

I gasped for air and opened my eyes, almost drawn into the history of the coin so far that I was afraid I would never find my way back. The voices were those who’d touched the gold, caressed it, desired it to the point that they would kill for it.

I was sitting on the cold floor, the hospital gown not covering my icy butt as I held the coin in front of me like an icon. It was morning, sunshine streaming in through the window near the bed.

I realized I’d have to get off the floor and at least sit down in the chair unless I wanted the hospital staff to think I was crazy and keep me another night searching for head injuries.

I pushed up on the chair and finally reached my feet. My knee ached from the cold and the position I’d been in on the floor for God knew how long. I managed to hobble back to the bed, the coin still in my hand, and was waiting for the morning nurse when she arrived a few minutes later.

The coin that had seemed so important that I would’ve happily risked my life to hold it again was dead in my grasp. It was as though I’d absorbed the voices inside of me once I’d seen its story.

I was freezing, exhausted and terrified as I gazed out of the hospital window. The young nurse chatted about breakfast coming, a doctor visit and the trip to the front door in a wheelchair. I nodded, made the right replies, my mind focused on what had happened with the coin.

What had happened? Nothing, maybe. It might’ve all been a trick of the injury. And maybe everything. I couldn’t ignore the strange feel of things around me—the bed, sheets and blanket. I was scared to lay my hands on any of it. There was a residual energy to everything I touched. Or I’d lost my mind.

“Dae?”

I didn’t even notice Gramps had come in until he was standing at my bedside, frowning at me. “Are you sure you’re okay? I called your name twice and you didn’t respond. Should I get the doctor?”

“I’m fine.” I smiled and touched the fresh bandage on my wrist where they’d removed the IV needle. “Ready to go home. I’m glad you came early.”

“I brought some clean clothes for you.” He put a green, cloth Harris-Teeter shopping bag on the bed next to me. “I’ll have the hospital throw away the other things you were wearing. I don’t imagine you’ll ever wear them again.”

“No!” I protested at once, then justified my too-frantic outburst with an explanation. “The fire investigator might want to look at them. I was the closest one to the blast. There might be some residual evidence on them.”

The frown between his eyebrows didn’t go away, but he nodded. “All right. I guess watching all those police shows on TV is good for something after all.” He paused and put his callused hand on my cheek. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Of course.” I climbed out of bed, holding the stupid hospital gown closed. Gramps might’ve changed my diaper a few times, but that was no reason he should see my backside again. At least I could use both hands this time. “I’ll get changed and we’ll go home.”

I picked up the cloth shopping bag and gasped, disguising it as a cough. I could feel the history of the bag, from when it was made somewhere in China to when it came to the U.S., where it was counted and sold.

“Dae?” Gramps was staring at me again.

“Sorry.” I thought fast. “It’s the old storm knee. A little stiff and sore this morning after the fall.”

My green shirt and pink skirt were in the bag. Bless his heart, Gramps couldn’t color coordinate himself out of a fishnet if his pants were on fire. The clothes gave me the same reaction as the Harris Teeter bag.

I reached for the faucet on the bathroom sink, the flush handle on the toilet, even the toilet paper; all showed me where they started and how they came to be here.

What was I going to do? I rested my head against the cool, drab tile in the bathroom where no one could see me. How could I live this way? I was overwhelmed by the minute details of all the everyday items that made up