Detachment
Lit Up — April’s Prompt: Distraction
Between the sirens and the crackling of flames and the bellows of firefighters, the reporter had to holler to make his news heard. He fit the scene well: chiseled features, teeth sparkling in the lights, voice overflowing with grim. He conveyed such pain, anguish, and gravity that it seemed a crying shame Olivia had eyes only for the pile of pennies she’d splashed onto the kitchen table.
Seated at her side, her husband Ethan flipped a page in his Field Guide to Western Mollusks. “I’m sure it was a Cinnamon juga,” he said. “If it was…” Thick paper swished back and forth under his touch. Page ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-seven.
Coins scraped and clinked as Olivia sifted through them. “Some wheat pennies are valuable. I haven’t seen one in a long time, though. Have you?”
The fire on the screen was replaced by a talking head rattling off statistics on some pandemic.
Ethan scratched his thinning hair and stroked his graying beard. “They’re almost extinct, you know. I wish I’d had my camera.”
Olivia shuffled pennies, picked one up, examined it heads and tails, and dropped it again. It clattered among the others. “Where was your cell phone?”
