One by one I picked the shiny coins from the bottom of the murky wishing pond. I scooped the shrapnel in my green dress, which was now soaked through. Some coins had been there for such a long time that they had left perfect imprints. This made it hard to tell if Id collected them all. Once satisfied that I had done this I climbed out of the pond water and onto the small oriental bridge.
New British coins don’t weather well. They were less shiny than other people’s older wishes. They must have changed the metal. I began to scrub up each one. Make them shiny, in the hope that if they could catch the light better they would be brighter dreams.
£8.20 worth of wishes had been collected, scrubbed and put into groups of matching coinage. There was also one American Dollar and an African 5c.
As I threw each wish back into the water I thought of Adelina and of her home, and the wishes I have for that space. I wished for the blessing of this project. I wished that all the original dreams that sunk with these coins would come true.
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