As he lifted the Dust Cover and saw what was underneath, he realised that this was most probably the most valuable thing he had ever seen.
He had to sit down. A cup of tea would be nice, but he doubted that the electricity was even on in this house, it had, after all, lain barren for over 2 decades now.
The dust was thick in the air and everything was covered.
After a moment he realised that he was being transformed to memories of when he was a child and playing gleefully in the yard. His father throwing the ball for him to chase and his mother making some lunch in the kitchen.
Those days were long gone, he even laughed at the thought of such defined gender roles and how this balance had certainly shifted over the years.
He looked at the couch that he had just uncovered and realised that all those years ago he had hidden a black penny in the cover of the right-side arm.
I wonder he thought, he dived his arm into the crevice and he felt the hard shape of the coin and pulled back his hand sharply as the memory of his father reprimanding him for taking the coin of the hallway cabinet and him pleading his innocence.
He wasn’t that innocent after all, he had stolen it, not because it was worth any monetary value, although a penny was worth a lot back then. But because it was blackened, and it fascinated him.
He thrust his arm into the crevice again and ripped out the coin with such force he thought he would damage the arm of the couch.
As he held the coin up to the stream of light coming through the louvered window, he heard a noise behind him, turned around and there was his father,
Aha he said, I knew you took it