麻豆淫院

We do it like this. I go across the street to Oren鈥檚 house. Oren has loaded the plastic eggs the night before. He puts five or six of them in a brown paper bag. We don鈥檛 do more than five or six at a time. Then he gets his walker with the oxygen tank, and the brown paper bag goes into the basket in front, and we go out Oren鈥檚 door, down the ramp, all the way down the street, past the park and along the river path. That鈥檚 where we do it, on the river path.

But I鈥檓 making this sound too easy. Everything鈥檚 hard and takes a long time. That鈥檚 how it is for us, at our age. It takes a long time to get down the ramp. It takes a long time for us to walk to the end of the street. We have to stop for Oren to catch his breath. He doesn鈥檛 look too good. His face is kind of gray. But eventually we get all the way to the park, and in time we get through the park to the river path. And then we begin. We walk a little, and then we stop. Oren says, 鈥淎nybody?鈥� He can鈥檛 turn around, so he has to ask me if anyone鈥檚 in sight behind us. We can鈥檛 do it when anybody鈥檚 watching.

When we have a stretch of path to ourselves, he reaches into the bag. His hands shake. The beds of his fingernails are purple. He takes out one of the eggs, and I crack it open so we can have one last look at part of his collection. Maybe it鈥檚 a Canadian silver dollar from 1967 with the goose in flight, or it鈥檚 a British crown with Saint George killing the dragon. A lot of times it鈥檚 just an ordinary silver dollar, a Morgan or a Peace. We admire it. Some of those coins are so pretty. Sometimes it鈥檚 a coin with a story, like that Luxembourg hundred francs with John the Blind charging into battle, and Oren fills me in on the details, and I say, 鈥淢y, my. Isn鈥檛 that something?鈥�

Then we do it like this. We put the coin back inside the egg, check again to see we鈥檙e alone, and I hide the egg where Oren tells me. In the crook of a tree. In among the blackberry brambles. Under some leaves with just a tiny bit of pink or purple showing.

Oren has lived here his whole life, and the river path is where he used to hunt for pop bottles. I grew up somewhere else, but I remember the hunt, the triumph of a good haul. One bottle was good for two pieces of penny candy. Five bottles were worth a dime, and that was a comic book.

Oren says, 鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 that be a good feeling?鈥� He has to catch his breath between sentences. 鈥淵ou find an egg, and inside it a silver crown?鈥� Silver is up so high that just one of these coins is real money. Of course, I kind of think it would be sad if whoever found one of these eggs went right to the coin shop and sold it.

My favorites, of the ones we have hidden so far, are the Polish coin with the girl haloed in wheat, the Nicaraguan cordoba with the smiling sun and the Ceylonese five rupees with the sixteen ducks walking around the coin in a circle.

We aren鈥檛 too regular. Oren doesn鈥檛 want anyone to come looking on a schedule.

Anyway, that鈥檚 how聽we聽do it. I don鈥檛 know about the others. Their eggs started showing up on the river path in places where we knew we hadn鈥檛 hidden anything. Sometimes they were reusing our eggs, we think. Sometimes their eggs were different sizes, or a different color, or they made an egg that was half blue and half green, which we don鈥檛 do.

Inside the first one, we found this little poem on a scrap of paper:

The oak tree stands
noble on the hill even in
cherry blossom time

聽鈥� Basho

One big yellow egg held a smaller egg that held a smaller egg that held a still smaller egg that held a slip of paper with the word 鈥淪unshine.鈥� Another of these nesting eggs, a green one, held the word 鈥淕rass.鈥�

We have found eggs bearing a wristwatch without a strap, a pair of cufflinks, a roll of postcard stamps, a boondoggle keychain, a phone number, a tiny pen knife and a dollar bill. Oren usually spots them first, and I bring them to him. Then we put them back.

We make our way along the river, and every so often Oren has to lean over the walker in a way that lets him get his breath. The oxygen can only help so much. While we鈥檙e resting like that, Oren spots a hollow tree that is such a perfect hiding place, it鈥檚 a wonder we never saw it before. We鈥檙e alone. We crack open the last egg of the day and look at the coin. Oren says it鈥檚 from Iran. One side shows a lion holding a sword. It鈥檚 a beauty.

When I get to the tree, I find the big blue egg that is already there. I swap eggs. I bring the blue one to Oren. I can tell by the size and feel of it that it鈥檚 going to be another one of the nesting eggs. And, sure enough, when I start to open it for him, we find a blue egg inside a blue egg inside a blue egg. Inside the smallest egg is a slip of paper. It says, 鈥淎ir.鈥�

Oren smiles. I think he鈥檇 laugh if he could. 鈥淭his one,鈥� he says. He pauses to get his breath. 鈥淭his one, I think I鈥檒l keep.鈥�

Bruce Holland Rogers聽(MEngl鈥�86) won the 2012 Micro Award for 鈥淒ivestiture鈥� for being the best story published in English in 2011. It is a fiction piece. He has taught creative writing in Budapest on a Fulbright fellowship and teaches fiction writing in the MFA program of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts in Whidbey Island, Wash. His website is聽

Illustration by Justine Beckett