Zero Pence

Jasmine left the house and tucked her chin into her winter coat. This was good as it hid her insane mutterings both visibly and audibly. It was also very comfy.

“Um, okay,” she said to herself as she made her way down the street. “Everything’s okay. This morning is okay.” She manoeuvred around smeared dog-shit. “Gross. But gross. Everything’s okay but gross.” A man turned onto the street she was walking on. “Okaaay. Everything’s okay and gross and I’m going to die.” She made fists in her pockets, remembering to keep her thumb on the outside like Toby said. “I’ll fight, but ohmygod he’s big. Why am I so small? Why am I tiny? I’m a borrower. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die.” The man passed her by. “Dumb. I’m just so dumb.”

Her train of thought started its scheduled journey from I’m Just So Dumb to the station at the end of the line where it rained silently and brain things melted into heart things. However, her train had not made it even as far as I Hate Myself when Jasmine found a shiny penny on the ground.  

She picked it up, greedy for the distraction. It was a novelty penny with the words ZERO PENCE printed around it. She snorted and stifled the rest of her laugh. Smiling, Jasmine put the penny in her pocket and continued on her way through unknown trials and tribulations all for the sake of . . .


“I got the hot chocolate powder,” Jasmine called when she came in. “And other goodies.”

She put the plastic bags from the corner shop on the ground and then hugged the wall of the corridor. “I missed you terribly, house. Why don’t you just come with me next time? We’d be safer if it were the two of us together. I’ll carry you on my back.”

“Mmm,” said Toby through the walls. It sounded like he was much as she had left him.

“Mmmmm, chocolate?” Jasmine asked.

“Mmm,” said Toby.

Jasmine stood against the wall a moment more, savouring its solidity. Then off she went. She hummed and sang her thoughts. She danced her way through boiling water, milk and chocolate powder. She yawned.

With the cup of deliciousness done, she checked the mirror in the corridor, just to make sure she was chirpy, not crazy.  

“Aah, that will do,” she said to herself. “That will do, that will do!” she sang as she took a cup to her red-eyed boyfriend on the couch.

He laid there in his pyjamas. They were holey and faded. An arm covered his eyes. His nose was red and his cheeks were dirty with tears, but he seemed calm.

Jasmine kneeled by the couch, the cup warm in her hands. She breathed.

“If you could just sit up, then you can drink this. It’s nice, I think.” She sipped the chocolate. “Ooh, it’s lovely.”  

His chest moved up and he sighed a long and terrible sigh. Jasmine knew he was trying to move. He was trying to remove his arm and shift his legs and pull himself up. She knew that he was battling now, battling against every fibre of his being that just wanted to stay dead on the couch. She set the drink on the floor.

“Reinforcements coming, love.”

She moved his arm off his face and he looked at her with half-closed eyes.

“Love you,” he said.

She kissed him. Then she moved his legs so his feet touched the ground. He began to get himself up and she helped him. Her heart ached and smiled.

“I love you,” she said.  


Outside again, battling the elements, fighting the good fight. It was raining. Jasmine sniffled her way to the bus stop that would be crowded on a day such as this and then the bus itself would be packed and slick with puddle dirt. Oh, misery.  

The bus stop came into view. A single figure with an oversized coat sat there holding a takeaway coffee cup.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” muttered Jasmine. “Nothing wrong with the gentleman there. Nothing scary about him. I mean, really, what do I think he could have done with the other commuters? Eaten them? No, he’s just a . . . an old man.”

The old man shook his unlidded cup when she approached. Change jingled.

She dug into her pocket and dropped a handful of coins into the cup, moving too quickly to even think about counting the money before doing so.  

“You’re a saint,” he said.

She nodded. Then blushed for nodding. Then looked out to the far bend in the road where her bus should be coming from. If she focused on that exact spot without distraction, the bus would come sooner.

“Excuse me, miss . . .” He took some coins out of his cup.

“Huh?” Gasp. “Did I give you all my pennies? I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

He scoffed a laugh. “No love, you did fine. I just thought you’d like your lucky penny back.”

Not coins. Coin. One shiny penny. She took it back.

“Don’t you want the luck?” she asked.

He waved his hand in negation. “I can’t take someone else’s luck.”

“Oh, I see. Thank you.”

It was her novelty coin. Zero pence. She did want to keep it, this smile she found on the road. Her bus arrived, crowded. But she wasn’t worried. Jasmine looked at her coin.  

Her smile went away. The bus did the same.

Printed around the coin were the words SEVEN PENCE.

She flipped it, hoping to find her smile but it was just the Queen’s profile. Her Majesty blinked, then turned to face her straight on.

“Yes, girl,” said Her Majesty. “We have much to discuss.”


The key was in the lock to her house, but it would not turn.

“Please. Please.”

She rang the bell, but she knew Toby wasn’t home.

“Help. Please.”

Her tears fell into puddles.  

“Please, I’m drowning.”

The key took pity on her. It turned. She rushed in and slammed the door behind her and whined and sobbed against the corridor wall.

“It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

Jasmine had gone mad.

The Queen’s voice was coming out of Jasmine’s pocket. She couldn’t hear Her Majesty’s words, but it sounded like a lecture in there.

A lecture, like from a stern mother. Wearing a crown.

Jasmine laughed. She cried a little too, but the laugh cleared out some of the hurt. She sat down against the wall and wiped away the tears as they appeared.

“But I tried so hard,” she said. “I got a job.” No way of getting there on time now. Call in sick. “I have Toby.” Who’s severely depressed. You’re dragging each other down. “The doctors helped.” Medicines with higher and higher dosage. They still haven’t found the right ones for you.

The Queen shouted out three words, and Jasmine heard them.

“I. Can. Help.”

Jasmine pulled out the coin.

“How can you?” she asked. “You’re another symptom. Another illness. If I try to take you on as well, I’ll die.”

“Oh, fragile girl,” said Her Majesty. “You have it all wrong. Why don’t you make yourself some tea? I’ll explain it all. Here’s a little gift to help you on your way.”

The coin went cold. The hurt disappeared. All of it.

“Chop chop,” said Her Majesty. “Tea time.”


Jasmine didn’t like tea, but that was not something she felt one could say to the Queen of England. She blew on the hot tea.  

“I feel . . . marvellous,” Jasmine said.  

Her Majesty was propped against an empty cup so that she could rest her eyes on Jasmine.

“Yes, go on,” she said. “Elaborate.”

“Um well, my thoughts have slowed down. They used to rush off through tangents and suppositions to dark places and they’d dwell there and kill me.” She laughed. “I can remember that . . . and that’s why it feels so marvellous to have a head so slow and logical. My thoughts are staying where they’re supposed to. They’re right here.”  

She sipped her tea. It was milky and sweet and not so bad after all.

“And that is half of what I do,” Her Majesty said. “I heal. I cure. I give.”

“What’s the other half?”

“Yes, yes. Don’t interrupt.” The Queen had on a haughty expression that made Jasmine smile. She looked cute. “Hmph. Ahem. Like I have said, half. I cannot give you something out of nothing. I have to take it from someone else first. And that’s what the numbers on my person correspond to. Energy.”

The Queen paused. Question time.

“Um. So the niceness I’m feeling now . . . you mean, that’s stolen energy from the homeless person?”  Please say no.

“Yes, dear. But do not worry. He is capable of replenishing himself. I only took a little. A single act of kindness, seen or experienced, will renew what was taken.”

“Oh.”

“Now now. None of that guilt. You’ll waste his donation. Now is the time to do! To change! You, my dear, are on the cusp of–”

The front door opened. The Queen went quiet.


It was Toby, of course. He dropped his bag, took off his shoes and hugged Jasmine.

“You’re home,” he said. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I had a panic attack at the bus stop so I came home, but I’m fine now, really. How about you? Your appointment? Did it help?”

He renewed the squeeze then let her go. “I don’t know. I’m tired.” He went to the couch and sank.

“Don’t worry,” said Jasmine. “It’s too soon to say. The appointments are cumulative. It’s really hard to have hope at first but then . . . if you just pretend you’re a robot you can do it. I did that at first. I told myself I was a robot programmed to be human. I made my body move through the motions even as my mind tried to override the commands.”

Toby didn’t say anything, but Jasmine thought he was listening. She continued.

“Some days are still hard. Like today, I suppose I slipped up a little. I should be at work. I should have called them by now. But Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is great. Really. It helps long term.”

“We did trauma work today,” Toby said.  

So soon? Jasmine sat next to him and held his hand.

“The whole way home, I . . . I don’t know. It was bad. I felt like a kid again. Awful.”

She kissed his hand. She thought of a therapist scratching his soul raw for his own good. It had to help him. It had to.

“You don’t deserve pain,” she said.

He said nothing.

“You don’t.”

His lips moved, but he kept quiet.

“Toby. You don’t.”

Then he cried.


Jasmine felt Toby move throughout the night. There was no point in waiting for him to fall asleep.

When she got up, she went round to his side of the bed and in hushed tones told him he would be saved. Then she went down to speak to the Queen.

“Absolutely not,” Her Majesty said. “I chose you, not that hollow boy.”

“But you can change him. You can fill him with peace.”

“Oh, indeed I can. Indeed. But fragile girl, I don’t want to.”

Jasmine held the Queen in her palm. She did not feel fragile.  

“Why are you ‘Three Pence’ now? Is that how much juice you have left?” she asked as she climbed up the stairs.

The Queen puffed. “‘Juice?’ My dear, it is my currency. But yes, three pence. Meagre chips. That beggar man did not have much to safely give. You will have to find me a source to tap into in the morning. A healthy source.”

They entered the bathroom.

“Oh!” said The Queen. “My word, the fact that I have to tell you to leave me outside. These uncivilized youths.”

“That’s not why we’re here.” She held back an apology. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to threaten you now.” Close enough.

Jasmine held the coin over the toilet. She rested her other hand on the flush.  

The coin was warm in her hand. The moment it goes cold, if it went cold, she would drop it lest the Queen take from her. She’d flush it then, this thing that wears the Queen’s face.

Jasmine stood like that for a while, in the bathroom, in the quiet. The silence chilled her and sent goose bumps along her arm.  

“Well?” Jasmine asked. “Will you help him?”

A few more beats, and the Queen spoke.

“Yes. I’ll have to give you the rest of the three pence and revert back to my neutral state. Then you’ll have to leave me somewhere for him to find and pick up. You can’t tell him where I am though. He has to find me. And then perhaps he will show you, and I will borrow something from you to give to him. And I will talk, and he will learn, and he will be grateful and devoted and he’ll live a good life.”

“Thank you,” Jasmine said.

The Queen said nothing more that day.


Jasmine rushed inside the staffs’ bathroom of the shoe shop she worked at. She answered the call.

“Toby, are you alri–”

“The Queen of England is speaking to me. She is speaking to me through a coin. It’s a coin.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Jasmine grimaced. There must be something better to say than that. “Are you in shock?”

“Yes,” Toby said. “I am probably in shock. Her face is moving inside the metal. It’s kind of . . . Hmm.”

Jasmine laughed. “It kind of is.”

There was a knock on the door. “Laughing. That doesn’t sound like an emergency call,” said a co-worker  with no real sternness.

“Just one sec,” Jasmine said.

“ . . . and the numbers keep on going up and up,” Toby said.

“Toby, what did you say?”

“Um. It started at zero pence. Now we’re at fifty-six pence. Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight.”

“Toby. Drop the coin.”

There was a thud.

“Toby. Toby answer me. Toby.”


Jasmine did not drive a car. She was afraid of them. She was afraid she would kill someone by being terrible at driving cars. The bus ride home took an hour. It had to stop to change drivers. She concentrated on her breathing and only cried in an intermitted manner. A warm tear now. Another two later.

She ran home from her bus stop. There was no trouble with the locks.

“Toby,” she called. “Toby.”

Toby was in the kitchen, specifically the floor, specifically in a mess of blood, which specifically came from . . .

“T- Toby. No.”

“Yes, it is sad,” said the thing that wore the Queen’s face. She was on the kitchen counter, next to a bloody knife. “But I can help you with that, dear.”

“What did you do? Why?”

The Queen made a sucking hiss. “It seems a transactions was made and a debt was incurred.”

“Why!”

“Because he was holding you back and I want to see you succeed.”

“Why.”

“Because, fragile girl, you are eternally on the cusp. Give your illness some quarter over your life, and you will slip and slide to terrible places. But you don’t do that. You never do that. Your victories are countless, but you are forever on the edge of failure. I can save you from that.”

“No.”

“I’ve watched you. I know you. I’ve travelled far and I’ve found you. I came to help. It’s not my fault help costs.”

Jasmine turned away and started looking through cupboards. She looked in the messy ones, the ones that kept the appliances they don’t use. The ones they threw in there when the novelty wore off.  

There it was.  

“What? What is that?”

Jasmine showed her. The butane ignition torch that was apparently used by professional chefs to light barbecues. They never really used it, but at least the fuel was still attached from when they tested it, because Jasmine couldn’t handle the fumbling of it right now.

“Oh don’t be stupid, girl. How could you even entertain the idea? Don’t you know how rare this is? Don’t you understand the VALUE of what I am TRYING to GIVE YOU?”

Jasmine fired it up.

“I BROKE DIMENSIONS COMING HERE. I SACRIFICED MY BODY TO SAVE YOU.”

Jasmine put the fire to the coin and its words burned as its face melted.  

It died screaming of how great she could have been.