The Coin

The year is 2008. It is early spring and the weather is warm. I’m sitting alone on the back porch of my cheap rented apartment. As I put pen to paper--or to be more precise, fingers to a keyboard--I close my eyes and feel the sun warm my skin. I begin to think back on what happened. I guess you could say that I have come full circle. My name is Ryan Quinn. This is the story of my adventure, my journey through time itself. I don’t know the “magic” of how I came to be where I was, or maybe it is better explained when I was. What I can tell you is that I have total recollection of what happened to me. All of the conversations and all that I have written here are true. Each of you will have to decide for yourself if you believe my story. I don’t care if you believe me or not, but all I can tell you is that it happened to me just as I have written it down here in the pages of this book. I have lost everything that ever meant anything to me: my girlfriend, my parents, my family, and my youth. All of it is gone because of the coin that I got that day. That coin changed my life and sent me on a journey through time itself. It also gave me the journey of many lifetimes. I have met some of the greatest people and some of the worst. Is it a fair exchange? Who knows? Maybe. It was July 5, 1973, the day I got the coin. The county fair had come to town. Back then, in Iron Wood Falls, as in most of eastern Kansas, the entire county turned out. It was more of a social gathering than anything else. My parents owned the local grocery store; they called it the Iron Wood Foods--very original. It was a small town. The store sold all the food that was needed there. I learned after I returned that my parents died in December 1989. I wasn’t there. I was somewhere in history. The store is still there but it is now called the Iron Wood Adult Emporium. It sells and rents adult videos and the like. That day in July was a hot day. Alyssa and I went to the county fair. I was almost nineteen years old and Alyssa was eighteen. We had been dating exclusively for about a year, but we had known each other for most of our lives. Alyssa’s parents were ranchers about three miles from town. She and I went to the same schools. I was on the high school football team; I would like to tell you that I was the star quarterback, but that was not the case. I was a backup lineman. Alyssa was the head cheerleader. She was the prettiest girl in the county. All of the guys wanted to date her. I think that if what happened to me had not happened, we could have had a chance to get married someday. That was one of the reasons that I came back to town. I wanted to find out what happened to Alyssa. I had learned that she was still in town. She worked in the Iron Wood bowling alley. It had been thirty-five years since I had seen her. She is now fifty-three years old. I’m fifty-four. I have been back for over a year now. No one here remembers me. They only remember the story of the nineteen-year-old that went into a coma one day. I have not told my story to anyone until now. I wanted to get it down on paper so that I would not forget it. I know that no one will believe my story, but it must be told. I’m afraid to go into the bowling alley and see Alyssa; it has been so long since the day I collapsed. I hope that she will remember me. Before you find out what is about to happen, you must read what has happened before. It was a Sunday, the day we went to the fair. It was the last day of the fair. The days were long and the skies were blue. I saw the old woman staring at me from across the midway. I had never seen anyone so old in my life. As we went across to the basketball throw, I saw her point her bony index finger at me and beckon me to come over to her. I looked around thinking that she wanted someone else. But again she pointed right at me and curled her finger, wanting me to come over to her. As we approached, she smiled at me. Her teeth were old and stained, and many were missing. Her breath smelled like death. Her eyes were a light shade of yellow. Her skin barely covered her bones. Her hair was very thin, almost white. Her cheeks were shallow and sunken into her face. When we got to the old woman, she said, “vos es electus.” I could hear the voice in my head. It sounded like that wicked witch of the west in The Wizard of Oz. Time seemed to have stopped. I could no longer hear the sound of the carnival. I could smell nothing but the stink of the old woman. What? I thought. vos es electus I heard her voice echo in my mind. vos es electus. She then looked up at me and said “alea jacta est.” Looking at the old woman, I thought, Who are you? Get the hell out of my head. The old woman reached into the pocket of her dirty dress and pulled something out of it. She reached out with her hand. I looked at her bony fist and without thinking; I reached out my hand to take what she was offering.