Spare change isn’t worth much. It floats around the bottom of purses, cars and couches. We leave pennies on the ground, in convenient store trays and in baristas tip jars. It jingles in our pockets; it is thrown into change jars and lies at the bottom of washing machines.
Then there are those days when we pass by a wishing fountain and its beauty and tranquility put a rest in our souls. The peaceful noise of the water, the engineered design of the flow of the water, the way the ambience and serenity and beauty of the fountain makes our hearts pause and take notice, if only for a moment.
I peer over the side of a wishing fountain. I usually call these wishing wells, as many people probably do. It’s a myth that if you take a coin, make a wish and then throw it into the water, the spirits of the water will hear your wish and grant it.
Flecks of copper and silver line the concrete base of the fountain. The wishes and hopes of people, desperation and wishful thoughts are sunk to the bottom of the wishing fountain.
Grandfathers give loose change to their grandsons, informing them to “make a wish,” and grubby hands toss the coins into the water, watching them sway to the right, then to the left, right, left then landing in their final resting places between some quarters and nickels.
So many hopes, wishes and dreams collect at the bottom of the fountain. What wishes are they? What dreams manifested themselves in these coins? What were those people thinking as they tossed their pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters into the fountain?
Placing my belongings near the wishing fountain at the Lancaster General Health Campus, I waited for someone to notice the fountain and give a closer look at it. A mother and son walked over to the fountain. The little boy immediately stuck his hands in the cool running water, much to his mother’s disapproval.
“Would you like to throw a coin into the fountain?” I asked the boy.
The boy looked to his mother who smiled and said, “Yes, thank you.”
I took out my bag of 20 pennies and found the shiniest penny I could find. Before I handed it to him, I let him know why I was there.
“Here is a penny for you to make a wish and throw into the wishing fountain. But we have to have an agreement. Before you throw it in, you need to make a wish. You can wish for anything, anything in the world. But then you need to tell me what you wish for. I won’t tell anyone what you wished for. It will be our secret. Just tell me what you wished for. Can you do that for me?”
The boy nodded his head yes and held out his hand. I placed the penny in his palm and let him go.
He tossed the penny into the fountain. We watched it sail through the water until it finally stopped near another penny at the bottom of the fountain.
“What did you wish for?” I asked.
Thrilled, the boy clenched his hands and exclaimed “a puppy!”
He looked so excited as if someone out there really heard him and was about to magically appear with the dog of his dreams.
I held out my bag of coins to the boy’s mother.
“Would you like to make a wish?”
The mother smiled and said, “Sure.”
She took a coin from the bag and gently tossed it into the fountain. The water swallowed her coin, and we lost sight of it beneath the ripples of the water. The smile disappeared from her face. Worry was caught in her eyebrows as she held her little boy across his chest.
“I hope that my baby will be ok.”
People have places to go and things to be done while at the Health Campus. X-Rays need to be taken, blood work needs to be done, people are coming into their shifts, some are done for the day, exams need to be done and paperwork needs to be filled out and filed. Even with the business of a work day and the inconveniences of appointments at the health center, many still have time to stop and talk to me, the girl with a Ziploc bag of pennies.
A teenage boy leans over the concrete base to look at all the pennies.
“There is a lot isn’t there?” I say ,trying to make conversation.
“Yeah, probably a few hundred bucks.”
“Do you want to make a wish?” I ask holding out the bag of pennies.
“Sure.”
I tell the teenager my agreement, my penny for his wish. He takes the penny and holds it tight. A toss. Putting his hands back in his pocket he tells me that his mother has cancer. “I hope that the chemotherapy and radiation will work.”
I continue to hear people’s wishes. A teenage girl hopes she can pass her drivers test, which she was to take the following day. A nurse hopes that the lottery ticket she buys today will make her filthy rich. A burley bike-riding man hopes, with tears in his eyes, that the doctors can remove the tumor. A woman my age hopes she will have a fun weekend.
Wishes began to flow through my ears like the water through the fountain; hopes of health, prosperity, conflict resolutions, love and friendship.
“I wish I was rich.”
“I wish she would forgive me.”
“I wish I could travel the world.”
“I wish I was famous.”
“I wish my mom loved me.”
The wishes of people and their hopes and dreams swirled in my head for hours as I heard the hopeful wishes, the far out dreams and the painful and anguished pleas of people walking through the corridors of the building.
“I wish he would love me as much as I love him.”
“I wish I wasn’t pregnant.”
“I wish the economy would get better.”
“I wish I could afford all of this.”
The wishes of people hang in the air above the fountain and myself. The water keeps on rushing through decorative open pipes, constant and never changing. A wish is made and the sound of rushing water is still the same.
Another wish and the water keeps on coming. Another wish and another penny is lost in the sea of wishes and coins. Another wish and then another, different than the last, but still containing that desperation and hopelessness that someone out there will hear their wish and grant it.
The coin holders are at the mercy of the fountain, offering what they have or have been given, in the exchange for someone, anyone, to listen to what is on their hearts and minds.
There are no more pennies left in my Ziploc bag. Twenty wishes have been sacrificed to the fountain, its water still flowing. I get up from my chair and look at the bottom. I cannot tell the difference between the wishes that were told to me and the ones that have been sitting there for days, weeks and months.
The coins have been scattered at the basin and have made their final resting place at the bottom of the fountain. I pick up my purse and dig through my belongings. A nickel. I hold it tight in my hands. What can I wish for? I sit on the concrete rim of the fountain, holding my nickel.
All I want to do is to scoop up the coins tossed into the fountains and make their wishes come true. I want to roll my pant legs up, jump in the cold water and pick up the lost wishes and hopes and make them become a reality.
The face of every person that threw in a coin lies at the bottom of the cold fountain. I want to rescue them. I am reminded of the scene in the movie The Goonies where the boy Mouth has stumbled across the wishing fountain underground. After being told he couldn’t take the money from the fountain because they are people’s wishes and dreams, he holds up a quarter and says, “Well, this is my wish, and I’m taking them back. I’m taking them all back”.
I toss my nickel in and watch it sway in the water as it sinks to the bottom of the fountain. It becomes lost with the other nickels, dimes, pennies and quarters that are people’s wishes, people’s desperation and hopelessness lying at the bottom of a watery grave.
You can only hope that the spirits that are said to live in wishing fountains can hear the wishes of those at the fountains mercy.
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