Pennies
short story, modern, contemporary
Published on:
June 2, 12:41amWord Count:
992Work Description
Penny for my thoughts?
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His long strides carried him briskly down the city streets, straying from the direct course only to avoid other pedestrians and obstacles such as telephone poles and garbage bins. The sun was shining and the road was alive with the cacophony of motorists on their way to offices or meetings or shopping malls. Here, at the heart of the city, the streets were teeming with life, with each individual person making his way to one goal that may be on this street or may be on the next, or may even be six roads away, but was important enough to make him rush. Everyone was rushing.
This particular man had a meeting on 54<sup>th</sup> Street in a half an hour, which was several streets away. In the interest of saving time, he slipped into a back alley, away from the noise and commotion, and hurried down it towards the next street. He normally tried to avoid this alley, even though it was always empty, mainly because it was dark and slick with a thin layer of grime that no one had cared to tend to. While the open city was bright and well-kept, the alleyways were never clean and rarely well lit due to the tall buildings encompassing them. He pressed on. He was almost half way to the other side.
“Penny for my thoughts?” a voice quite close to him said.
He jumped to the side, away from the voice, and steadied himself against the wall as his eyes searched the shadows. “Who… who the hell was that? Who are you?”
From the darkness a woman emerged, clad only in filthy rags, with knotted hair that clung to her scalp as if glued there. She was not old by any means, and he could tell that beneath the grime caked upon her features, she had the face of a woman in her thirties or early forties. In his perfectly pressed suit and $300 wingtips, he stood in stark contrast to her.
“Penny for my thoughts?” she asked again, this time slower. She held out a shaking hand plaintively, but didn’t get any closer to him.
He cleared his throat and looked away. “I have no change,” he blurted out, and turned to resume walking. That was the only way to deal with beggars. She had cornered him, but he wasn’t about to let that work.
“You always carry change,” she said to his back. “For vending machines.”
He didn’t respond. People have no right to assume things to guilt others.
She paused. “I bet you kept your room very clean as a child, and your teddies all had names, too.”
At this, he stopped, and turned to face her. “Excuse me?”
She smiled. Thoughtfully, she continued, “You were a rascal, though. Sneaking out to parties and never getting caught. Still stray to the bottle for respite, do we?”
“Pretending to be some sort of fortune teller won’t get you anywhere,” he snapped. “Don’t act as if you know me. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“But I’m seeing you right now, and these things show very clearly,” she replied easily. Walking toward him, she said, “Look at the way your hair is combed so neatly. You’re not that old, Son – to be that meticulous, you’d have to have been doing that for your whole life. But I see the glint of daring in your eyes, and don’t you deny it’s there.”
She stopped in front of him, just where the darkness of the alley stopped and sunlight began. In a gentle, confident tone, she said, “So, a penny… for my thoughts?”
He hesitated. It surprised him more than her when he reached into a pocket and produced several coins. He dropped them in her hand, not bothering to check the amount he’d withdrawn. “Generally it’s ‘penny for your thoughts’,” he pointed out.
“Ah, but I haven’t a penny to give you, son!” she exclaimed with a thin laugh. As she dropped the change into a hidden pocket under her torn coat, she added, “And besides, why would I want your thoughts? It’s mine that need saying.”
Crossing his arms, he said, “Then
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Whew! This rocks! It's not easy to give morality lessons
in a really good short story, but you managed to make a valid point
very poignantly. I must say I appreciate that. You took me back to
my youth when I was wondering the same things. I'm still not sure
I've learned the answer. 
I like the way you bring the street to life:
the road was alive with the cacophony of motorists on their way to offices or meetings or shopping malls. Here, at the heart of the city, the streets were teeming with life, with each individual person making his way to one goal that may be on this street or may be on the next, or may even be six roads away, but was important enough to make him rush. Everyone was rushing.
I thought you might have spent a bit more on setting the alley scene. I got that it was grimy and empty, but couldn't really feel it.
I felt the character from the woman in the alley. She's someone I'd like to know and have a conversation with sometime. Your gentleman seemed a bit shallow, even in the end. I have a suggestion.
“Listen before you judge, son,” she said. He really wasn’t much younger than she was. “There are two types of people in this city. Those that wanted to stay young forever, and those that thought they were mature as kids, and wanted to be that way forever.”His scowl faded. He paused, and then said, “I was mature for my age as a kid.”
If the man were to think a bit deeper about here, I might be able to get more of a sense of who he really is under the veneer. I kept thinking that he wasn't truly getting what she was trying to tell him.
I also get the feeling that she knew him somehow. Did they grow up together or something?
All in all, I really DO like this story. Thanks. 
I thought this was a well-written piece.
I'll start with three things I thought worked really well in this piece:
- Well-written prose and smooth transitions
- Very good dialogue, seems natural and the text around it is not distracting
- Vivid description: below are some examples of description that I particularly liked
it was dark and slick with a thin layer of grime that no one had cared to tend to. While the open city was bright and well-kept, the alleyways were never clean and rarely well lit
a woman emerged, clad only in filthy rags, with knotted hair that clung to her scalp as if glued there. She was not old by any means, and he could tell that beneath the grime caked upon her features, she had the face of a woman in her thirties or early forties. In his perfectly pressed suit and $300 wingtips, he stood in stark contrast to her.
I caught a small typo here....
one goal that may be on this street or may be on the next, or may even be six roads away
... I think you might have meant "maybe even six roads away."
Other than these broad stroke comments, I thought you had a very ambitious goal of telling a story with a moral/ philosophical meaning.
The biggest thing I wanted to make the story more compelling, was a deeper motivation/ longing in the main character. If he is just a self-centered guy in a suit, we don't care that much about him as readers. What does he want? To get to his next meeting? Eh. Not so compelling. If you want to make the story stick with us for longer than brushing by this guy in the subway, please give us more about him (is he having an affair and cheating on his wife? is he on the brink of bankruptcy? does he have a suicidal child, but doesn't know it yet?) My fiction teacher always said that we had to portray the character's compelling need, and I think that if you add that dimension to this story, it will be really excellent.
I think the danger of telling a story with a personal value is that you come across as moralizing and you lose the reader. You can't be self-interested in a story, I think, anyway. I think you have to put the reader first... or at least find some balance between their desire to be entertained and drawn in, and your message that you are trying to put across. I don't think you are at risk of that here, but the story will be even stronger if we can identify more strongly with your character by giving him more humanness for us to relate to as readers (by showing what he wants).
Finally, one last point:
“There are two types of people in this city. Those that wanted to stay young forever, and those that thought they were mature as kids, and wanted to be that way forever.” His scowl faded. He paused, and then said, “I was mature for my age as a kid.” She smiled, and shook her head. Reaching into her pocket, she retrieved his money and put it back into his hand. “When I was little, I didn’t want to stay young or grow up… I just wanted to understand what the difference was.”
In this passage, I believe we have the crucial moment of the story. If other readers do not have this comment, then never mind, but I didn't fully understand what you meant here. I felt that this meant a lot to you (what is the difference between staying young and growing up) but it happens very quickly here, and I'd need a visual to understand more about what this woman is saying to him, to get what it really means to you. Is she just balancing between young and old? I definitely got her insight into him, that he was still a kid, playing at being grown up. But what is the alternative she is offering? What does it mean to her to be young? I was picturing kids on a swing set, or following your bliss, or something like that which she is alluding to, but it's not absolutely clear to me here what that is.
I hope this is helpful and would love to see a second version of this, if you make any edits. Good luck writing!
It was fiction, so it was easy to believe once you accepted that there was somethings a little abnormal about this woman. :] I like the story line, and the fact that it all revolved a lot around childhood and pennies. Something so simple and cheap, that its really not a hassle to give out a penny.
The pacing might have been a little bit fast. The intro to this woman and this man's life was good, but I felt like everything afterwards was kind of rushed.
The descriptions were good. I like the ones about the woman. They were a little creepy, but I think that's the vibe you were trying to give.
"no one cared to tend to"? I feel like this was supposed to be a really good description, but the words were never formed. What if you said something like, "A thin layer of grime that had been left over from many years of neglect." Or something. I think that could be really great, but develop it a little. :]
This confused me a little, because you went from describing the woman, but then switched and compared HIM to HER. Maybe you can describe the quality of her rags. Are they torn? Dirty? Etc. Then you can throw in the fact that he's wearing a perfectly pressed suit, and $300 wingtips.
The POV was good. It stayed the same the whole time, I think.
I feel like you developed the woman, more than the man. You told his life story through her, but that felt kind of weird to me, like it was her perception of his life. I liked it, but at the same time, I feel like I know her more than him. He means nothing to me right now, but I'd care if the woman went and got hit by a car, you know? They were good descriptions, and I like that he's like, corporate manager man, and shes like this woman who has nothing, and is telling him basically to take more time in life to notice the small, yet important things. And to not get so caught up in his business life.
I liked her. :]
It was pretty good, I liked how the woman talked, and what she said.
But:
This caught my attention, just in that if someone got scared in a dark alley, they'd more than likely ask: "Whose there?" They wouldn't come off angry, they'd come off scared first.
But, I really liked the message she was sending, by the way.
I didn't see any issues. :]
This is a really good story. I really liked the descriptions, and how she actually gave BACK his change. It was almost a random act of kindness.
Well written. I hope you continue to use your imagination for future stories.