| They say that for every gift there is a price. Not many people take it into account that perhaps that price may not be money or material things. But then again not very many people think that the gift, may too, not be material. On the night of October 8th Julia went looking through her closet for a coat, since winter was approaching. Under all the piles of clothes that were thrown all over the closet floor, she found her father's heavy ash gray coat. It had been in the closet since her father got back from the army about 10 years ago. She sniffed it to make sure it was clean and not mildewed. It had the scent of must and wet dirt all over it. Julia sneezed. " Whoa that smells bad." She mumbled to herself. She threw it in the washer and washed it with detergent that smelled like the bright wild flowers she had growing in her backyard. After it was dry and washed she set it on the bench, which lay horizontally at the end of her bed, along with the rest of her school clothes and went to sleep. In the morning, she awoke as usual and got dressed. Before she left off to school, she put on the coat. During school she noticed that she was actually having a good day and figured it was because of the coat. " A lucky coat." She called it. Her friend Adam didn't believe her. Seemed too far-fetched to him. " There's no such thing as a lucky anything, Julia. Perhaps maybe the bad things that usually happen to you are, I don't know, taking a vacation or something. " He said mocking her comment about the coat. "Don't you believe in anything Adam?" " Yeah I believe in airplanes crashing because of fuel problems and I believe in bad grades and things that really happen." "Well, I believe this coat brings me good luck. I got a good grade on my exam in Civics today thanks to this coat." " Maybe you just studied hard Julia it has nothing to do with that stupid coat." " That's just it, Adam, I didn't study. At all!" Julia said wrapping the coat around her tighter. But Adam just shook his head in disbelief. Julia had really believed the coat had brought her good luck. She continued to wear it over the next week. Not only did it bring her good luck, it brought her prosperity as well. She got a job that paid well; three weeks later she bought a car. While she went looking for her car and her job she didn't take off the coat. She kept it with her everywhere she went. She continued to wear it and she graduated Valedictorian in her class and went off to college. She wore the coat all through college. She married a millionaire and kept her coat on as the " something old" for her wedding. She kept it and won the lotto and moved out of her town. She kept the coat for eleven years and never let it out of her sight. All eleven of those years it seemed to have brought her good luck. One night, she asked her husband to go to the market and get some milk. When he came back, he went into their room and found her on the bed dead. She was wearing the trench coat, in her hand a note in blood red ink said: " For every gift, there is a price�" � 2002 Jade All Rights Reserved |
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