Flash Fiction: See A Penny

The dapper man picked up a penny. He rolled it around in his fingers, enjoying the coolness of it. It was raining, and he had had only seen it because the bronze colour had shone up in the middle of a shallow puddle.

The dapper man remembered a rhyme he had heard when he was tiny. See a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck. He thought there might be more to it than that, but that was enough for now. He had a Very Important Meeting to go to that afternoon, and if a bit of extra luck came his way, so much the better. He slipped the penny into his pocket and strode onwards, letting the rain hit him as hard as it could, challenging it to. He was that sort of man.

The meeting went well. Very well. So well, in fact, that the dapper man started to plan his early retirement, complete with yacht, summer house in the South of France, and ridiculous sports car that no one could really fit in well enough to drive.

His plan also included spending a lot of time in Monaco, and possible Las Vegas. He wanted to gamble and this deal would give him the money to do it. The dapper man, with his lucky penny and his six figure business deal decided that now would be a good time to start. He strode into the bookies and placed a bet. A few bets. Many bets. All were for tomorrow’s races; he could sit at home and watch the money roll in.

The dapper man did sit at home. He did watch the races. He lost every single one of them. And as he was telling himself not to worry, it didn’t matter that he’d just lost all of his savings because the Very Important Deal would fix everything, he got a phone call. The deal was off. It was a shame he hadn’t actually signed anything during that Very Important Meeting.

It was also a shame he’d forgotten the second part of the rhyme; See a penny, give it away, and your good luck is bound to stay…

©Lisamarie Lamb 2011