Ficly

Rain Check

The tiny scrap of paper had been passed down from generation to generation. My mother seemed to recall her mother telling her that it was over 300 years old.

For being so ancient, I marveled at how legible the writing upon the wrinkled, yellowed square of paper remained. I had seen paper before – years ago I found a piece of newspaper in grandpa’s basement – but this was the only piece of paper with handwriting that I had ever seen. It was quite incomprehensible to imagine a time when people had to imprint their thoughts with a crude instrument onto such a fragile medium, without the aid of a computer or neural implants. How long it must have taken to communicate back then…

What does this say? I beamed to the net with a thought. Mother responded first, though responses from my brother Philip and several ancient text experts from various data libraries and universities queued up.

It’s in cursive, mom responded, very old handwriting. It reads “Rain check – chicken breasts, 88-cents a lb.”

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