This is my new pin. I bought it at a secondhand store last week.

I already believe this pin is lucky—if luck does, in fact, exist—because after I found it and before I purchased it, I dropped the pin in the store while I was shopping. It wasn’t until about twenty minutes later that I realized it was missing from my hands, and I was genuinely forlorn.

I retraced my steps and discovered it in front of a case of cassette tapes I’d studied for a while. It was waiting for me, its new owner, with shimmering presence.

This is good. I need luck.