Prompt-O-Rama

Simply Not Cricket (Prompt: Cold)

Bear with me if I am brusque; I am just a coin, a ruffled one at that. 

The lucky ones of my kind end up in cosy lockers, piggy banks and the likes and the luckier ones are never minted in the first place. They become currency notes that dress in leather.

And then there is my kind, slightly wider, and thicker between the proverbial two-sides, with a more prominently embossed head on the one side and an equally audaciously embossed symbol on the other. 'Why do you call yourself unfortunate?' I hear you ask. I am a coin, not of currency that can buy you candy or soda, but a special one, I wonder how, that gets flipped by men and women all the time. If you haven't got it yet, I am the one that's tossed before a game of cricket. 

There was a time when it would take me hours to get over being flipped. Today, I am fine with having my tail trying to whip my head and my head evading the tail a hundred times after being tossed. I love it when I get to land on soft grassy patches or sandy patches. I love it when I land on my tail more than on my head as it doesn't hurt me but it hurts the fool who called 'tails,' having fallen for the myth that there is a higher chance of a tail than a head. It is all my doing if you ask me. Toss me on a grassy patch where I am less likely to be hurt, I'll give you what you ask for. Toss me on barren rocky tracks, I will do what it takes to disappoint you. I love it when you chaps wince after making the wrong call, especially when it is 'heads,' and I show my tail and laugh hard with my head hidden. Not that you can find out even otherwise. I so love to see a disappointed captain. And now over to what I hate - I hate the cold and anything wet like the dew on the grass. I hate winter tours, I hate the flood-lit matches and I hate it all the more when both come together as they did last night. 

The match referee walks out with me and, the on-field umpires and the two captains walk out to be greeted by a boisterous crowd. It is very cold, I can tell you from within the cosy confines of the match-referee's large palm. I shudder to think what will happen when I am tossed. And I am tossed. Flip-flip-flip-flip I go, tormented by the scathing swipes of the cold air as I turn every time. By the time I am up, I am heavier with all the wetness that has chosen to stay with me to kill me. And then I fall, flipping desperately to see if I can lose some of the cold, but I gather more and go numb. Hypothermia? No. I am finally on the ground, and just when worst seems over and I seem set to go into the cosy pocket of the match-referee's jacket, I realize I have landed on moist earth on my edge. The captains laugh, the referees laugh, the crowd laughs and here I am, crying my throat hoarse. 'Spare me and find a coin that will land well,' I plead but none can hear me. I go through being tossed once again and this time, I roll of into the wet grass. Thankfully I am on one side and my ordeal is finally over, or so I deceive myself once again. 'Why?' you ask? Well, It looks like I am the first ever coin to have landed on the edge and the cameras want to see me, every one of them. I am then taken to be checked if I am fit or obese - in my terms. They prod me with cold forceps, drop me on a cold weighing-tray and it appears the entire world is bent on making me feel cold. All of it, on a cold winter night. How I wished then that I could combust at will?

Thankfully I am now in a cosy chest, enjoying every bit of warmth I craved last night. Before I go, let me tell you something. If I were to die and be born again, I would love to be a bullet - in the past - so I can plough through the head of whoever came up with the idea of tossing coins to decide who does what. 

Tossing the defenseless us is simply not cricket, even if it be for it.