Currency

A short story exploring the transaction of friendship.

It was the night after everything had fallen into nothing. Eaten by the black, thrashing of the sea. Where the waves churned and tossed about inside my depths like the rotary tumble of a laundry drum, curdling it all into butter.

If you can imagine a towering spire of matchsticks built up into the sky, like a beacon on a lonely shore. A symbol of hope and safekeeping. An anchor point on the horizon that guides the way as you navigate the squalls and swirling mists of life. Then, one gloomy, humid day - the kind where tears weep from your skin - A strange travelling merchant with eyes as dead as driftwood arrives to admire the tower. But before you’ve had a single moment to catch your breath or return his unsettling grin, he has gracefully plucked up a single matchstick and has left on his way.

 

And you of course, are left to watch as the tower comes crashing down like the ocean exploding over the edge of the world.

That is what happened yesterday. My matchstick tower fell to dust.

In the wake of crushing devastation, I could not find comfort in all the usual things. Music grated under my skin, the television was full of muffled, disjointed voices and the cat’s purr became a chainsaw roaring on the couch beside me.  I could hardly sit still. I was possessed by the notion that as long as I kept moving, I may outrun the incoming tide that threatened to sweep me away. The walls began to bear down and quite suddenly I found myself unable to breath.

I escaped into the sticky, humid air of November and allowed my feet to conduct a symphony along the pavement. I did feel was more peaceful for a time.  Eventually though the metronome of my footsteps was no longer enough to drive away the crashing waves that tumbled me over and over until I didn’t know which way was back up to breathe.

 I don’t know how far I walked, but when I finally looked up the moon was high and I no longer recognised the long shadows that loomed at me from the now sinister suburban yards.

In that moment I felt truly afraid. The kind of creeping, sinking, crawling afraid that swallows you whole from out of the blue and defies all of your logic. The kind that makes you believe for a brief, yet seemingly eternal moment that there is something horrific lurking under the bed.

I immediately fished out my phone and scrolled through the contacts, searching for an unwitting saviour. But even then, in the midst of my chaos and terror, I hesitated. I am not the kind of person who easily asks for help you see.  My father was a large and forceful man who was exceptionally good at managing other people’s money. In the rare and unusual moments that he actually acknowledged my existence, he used to quote things like “money makes the world go round” and “a fair exchange leaves both pockets brimming.” Unfortunately, he was not as skilled with people and had the tendency to apply his ample knowledge of currency to every aspect of life. 

And sometimes, although I resented it, I found myself doing the same. As I imagined myself in a perfectly ordinary interaction with a friend, I couldn’t help but visualise us both holding a small leather pouch full of coins, exchanging them back and forth as we transacted our friendship. Inevitably though, after every encounter I would walk away worried that I had somehow short-changed my friend. So I guess, even in this moment of terror and confusion, it was no great surprise that I found the idea of unburdening myself on a friend near impossible. In the depths of my vast mind I saw myself greedily snatching away their entire pouch of coins only to leave them feeling cheated and empty.

As I stood there alone on the pavement with terror pumping through every limb, the fear of being trapped in what I saw as a grossly unequal exchange caused me to close my phone and push it back down into my pocket. And then as if by design, two golden orbs of brilliant yellow light grew before me, splitting the sinister darkness apart. I watched mesmerised, as they grew larger and larger, brighter and brighter. I imagined them enveloping me up into a happy oblivion. Without thinking I felt my legs begin to move, my feet no longer conducting a soothing symphony but erupting into a tumultuous finale.

It was a touch, cool and firm that caused the final, dramatic cymbal crash to retreat back into the looming darkness of the night. A gasp of warm air erupted into my lungs and brought the world back with the dizzying force of a tidal wave.

When I looked at the hand on my arm, I found it to be weathered and splattered with spots like barnacles on the hull of a fishing trawler. Eventually my confused gaze met her eyes. Even in the dim street light I could see they were the still, calm and the deepest ocean green. Her hair was damp and hung about her wrinkled face like curtains of pale seaweed, slicked in foam.

“I’ve made enough tea for two” were the first and only words that had cut through the swirling chaos since everything had crumbled into the abyss. It wasn’t an invitation or a suggestion. It was a lifebuoy tossed from a vessel passing silently in the night.

She took my hand and led me inside. The house was dark and cool, like the inside of a cave. An audience of frozen faces ushered us down her narrow hallway and into the dining room. She had a collection of seashells on the wall there that gave me an odd sense of comfort and relief.

I sat as she poured the tea in silence. She didn’t ask whether I wanted milk or sugar, but served it to me straight. As I sipped, a strange concoction of flavours sprung to life on my tongue and immediately the advancing tide began to recede.

She watched me with a deep, unrestrained kindness as I clung to the lifebuoy that was slowly being reeled in. Then suddenly I began to talk.  I told her everything. Not just of the day before, but of the many years before that as well. I blurted it all out and watched helplessly as I began collecting up her pouch of coins with every heart-wrenching word I choked out.

When I finally finished, I was no longer dry-eyed but neither was I marooned on a lonely shore. But the relief passed quickly and instead the rising panic of guilt caught in my throat like sand.

“I have nothing to offer you in return for your kindness.” I said suddenly into the dim room filled with seashells and the swirling steam of exotic tea.

She smiled sadly and touched my hand.

“Child. My kindness is not for sale.” She said gently. “By allowing me to offer my ear to your tale, and opening your heart to my tea, you have given me the pleasure of knowing I did not stand by as a little fish floundered on the sand. There was a time long ago when I was that fish, and there will be a time when you encounter another yourself. It fills me with gladness to have assisted you, little fish. So you see, I am far from empty-handed.”

Her eyes were bright and full of the kind of truth that clings to your lips like salt. Somewhere, in the murky depths of my mind, I felt that my little leather pouch was suddenly much lighter. Curious, I dipped in my fingers and found that it contained no coins.

 

Only a single shell, through which I could hear the faintest echo of the sea.