What worth the coins in my pocket?

Short story inspired by https://www.blaseball.com/bulletin blaseball.

What worth the coins in my pocket? The golden slugs that ching ching ching merrily as I stride from the shop to the bookies. The solid metal disks, emblazoned on the head with the Blaseball logo, dark and writing, and on the tail with the five quartered cross representing the leagues, and on the obverse with the giant Peanut. I keep trying to see what is on the fourth side, but the coins won’t stay still long enough.

What worth the coins in my pocket? I bet them all. I blew them all. My beloved Moist Talkers fallen low, I placed my last 20 coins on them. And then I watched it happen, in the shop. I sat at the counter, nursing a cocoa Maltese, feeling the fizz in my straw as I looked at the goods on display. I was eyeing a jersey, nestled between pendants, when the person next to me mumbled.

“____, shine down on me so that I may behold your glory and partake of your peanuts!” They held their hand up, and with a glow, coins. Those blessed, cursed coins. They laughed merrily and rushed out towards the bookies to place a bet.

I glanced around and saw this repeated time and time again. I thought… this seems wrong, but.. what can it hurt. I nodded my head in prayer. One hand outstretched, the other cracking open a peanut, I placed the salty goodness in my mouth and mumbled a plea around it. I felt the glow, the cold, hollow glow, and my side slumped with the weight of several coins. I could feel them in my pocket, suddenly… there.

I thought back to my first time entering the Stadium, the empty bag that I was given, suddenly full with my first coins, so frivolously wasted away. What worth, the coins in my pocket?

I touched the pendent that hung around my neck. Earlier, it had given the same hollow glow as I watched Polkadot Patterson, my shining everything, strike out batter after batter. Seven times that game, he struck a batter out cleaning, the stick never touching the ball. And seven times, my hands came empty to my neck, and left with several coins in them. Coins that are only good for betting, buying things from the Shop that make more coins…. and Peanuts. What are they good for? What worth the coins in my pocket?

I walk now to the bookie. I have another bet to make, with these coins given to me by the Blaseball Gods. But I wonder, and fear. What worth the coins in my pocket? What purpose? The Gods drive us to bet, and grant us their coins to do so with. Why? What does it mean? What are they for? And where are the Crabs?

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