Cole Beauchamp

Let’s say I swallowed a coin by accident

Let’s say I was tapping the dime on my teeth despite Mom always droning Don’t put things in your mouth Why are you always putting things in your mouth and let’s say my sister the wiggleworm whacked my elbow and the coin dropped down my throat like a gumball and let’s say Mom wasn’t there because she was upstairs she’s always upstairs where she’s been ever since Dad left with the big suitcase and let’s say Jenna and I loved it at first eating frozen pizza and ice cream and spring rolls and watching movie after movie especially the Terminator movies that Mom hates but now there was just dirty ice in the bottom of the freezer and now we’re scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar and no more grape jelly and now Jenna is really getting on my nerves with her elbows and her I’m hungry and when’s Dad coming back but now it was summer and there was nowhere we had to be and when we picked up the phone sure enough it was still working and do you know that coin popping down my throat was so comforting that I found another and do you know I went to bed dreaming of how those two dimes might call to each other in the squish of my insides and how they might reach for each other like the T1000 in Terminator who reformed from pools of liquid metal and do you know I dreamt of the coins finding each other in the night and joining hands like Mom and Dad used to and let’s say I never woke up to find it wasn’t true. 

---

Cole Beauchamp (she/her) is a queer writer based in London. She’s been shortlisted for the Bridport, Bath and WestWord prizes, with stories in The Phare, trampset, Citron Review, Janus Literary, Ellipsis Zine, Free Flash Fiction and others. She lives with her girlfriend, has two children and an exuberant Maltipoo. You can find her on Twitter at @nomad_sw18