Find a nickel pick it up and all day you’ll have good luck?

Her knuckles rapped the door. It gave in like a scolded child, opening into the room. She stood there in its wake as if she were the new door blocking the world from this room.

“I thought so.” She floated the words into the room and listened for an echo back. She picked the only book with a well-read spine off the shelf.

“Are you drunk?” There was her echo.”I thought you had a liver problem.”

She looked up from the yellow pages mid-tear, “Roommate to roommate? It’s a living problem.” She ripped another page and held it up to the light sneaking through the doorway. It was a list of residential numbers. The “W”s.

“These people are connected to these ten digits intimately. I, a complete stranger, know their number now. What do i do?” She turned the page over and spoke as if she was addressing the people directly through their phone numbers. “I can call them and say, ‘Hey, I have twenty nine dollars that I’d like you to have. Just tell me. Is this a miracle? Good luck? Random act of kindness? Are you thanking me or on your knees sending thanks to someone who had no hand in this. I guarantee you. I chose you because I have this book and I have your number. I’ve also got twenty nine dollars that aren’t mine anymore. They’re yours.'”

“One person’s miracle another person’s kindness?” The echo again.

“It’s junk and treasure.”

“See, there’s a point. If I see a penny and pass it up, does it lose its luck?”

“Why aren’t there lucky nickels?”

“It can’t lose its luck if you don’t believe in miracles. Do signs stop meaning if you don’t see them? It’s like a fingerprint scanner that doesn’t recognize your fingerprints. It says you don’t exist, but there you are ten fingers ten toes breathing the air some kid in Africa could be using over you, and more efficiently, too.”

“So what? You’re the lucky penny at the end of your chosen one’s numbers?”

“Chosen one? I’m not saying whether that penny – or nickle – has luck instilled in it or you take luck from it. But if you pick that penny up, you’re going to choose one or the other.”

“Any chance you’ll pick my number from that book one day?”

“Do you believe in luck?”