Dollars and Scents

Photograph by Jennifer Anable

The scent of old copper rinsed from a boiling pot steams heavy. I can smell the stale cheapness in and out of my jackets, jeans and hair. Like smoke tangled in hair spray there is a stickiness that feels trivial traveling with me. Every thought is a penny and means next to nothing.

How did these walls get here?

Why did I paint them red?

Why aren’t there more colors?

Only they aren’t nothing. They’re light in size and over-cooked by vision. Brownish orange cents line my purse until there are pounds worth of thought. There are too many to count. Pennies with purse lint. Pennies with gum. Pennies stuck to receipts of places I can’t remember.

I threw them into the pot of boiling water until I heard them hiss with a sparkling cleanliness. The warm metallic thoughts now stick to the bottom turning to a gold-like substance. Like butter they were almost edible, but eating a vision isn’t like swallowing money. There is no richness in old thoughts, just a rusty flavor that feels more expensive than I remember.