Three Coins

The Three Coins is a strange story about a mysterious competition in a small town involving three coins marked with a square, a circle and a cross. After it happened, everyone agreed that the whole thing was the product of a twisted mind, a game of chess played by a madman, in which the playing pieces were human beings. One morning, the inhabitants of a small town in the United States woke up to find a large billboard had been erected in the town center. The sign read: 'Yesterday, three coins were put into circulation in this city. Each coin is engraved with a symbol - a square, a circle and a cross. These coins will change hands many times and on the seventh day after this announcement, the holder of each coin will receive a prize: 1st Prize: One million dollars in cash. 2nd Prize: An all-expenses-paid trip around the world. 3rd Prize: Death. The answer to this puzzle lies in the symbols on the three coins. The circle, the square and the cross. One of them symbolizes wealth, another symbolizes travel and another symbolizes death. It's up to you to figure out which is which...' By noon, almost everyone had heard the news and the town was buzzing with excitement and anticipation. Shopkeepers examined the contents of their cash registers and customers checked the loose change in their pockets and purses. The first coin was found in the street by a young boy, who immediately took it to his father. The father got nervous when he saw the cross engraved on the coin. He thought the cross represented a cross over a grave and was sure it was the coin of death. He got rid of it quickly by spending it in a shop. Everyone who received the coin marked with the cross came to the same conclusion and it began to change hands rapidly. The second coin was discovered by a cafe owner in his cash register. It was engraved with a square. He stared at the coin for a long time before growing worried and handing it to an old lady with her change. The old lady took one look at the coin, let out a scream and threw it into the street as if it was burning a hole in her palm. A street sweeper picked up the coin and carried it around with him all day, dreaming of holidays in foreign lands, before finally succumbing to the fear that gnawed at him. The coin marked with the square changed hands again. The third coin was found in the change given out by a vending machine. It was engraved with a circle. The man who found it kept it in his pocket, but the next morning, he discovered, to his dismay that it was gone. He had accidentally spent it, but he couldn't remember where. It turned out that the person he had given it to was a woman who sold fruit and vegetables in the street. She was sure that it was the million dollar coin, but when she showed it to her husband, he felt it was bad luck and told her to get rid of it. She tossed it into the cup of a homeless man who was begging in the street. He ran off to buy a bottle of alcohol with it and the coin marked with the circle changed hands again. The three coins were on everyone's lips. All anyone wanted to talk about was the three symbols, but nobody could agree on their meaning. All of the people who came into possession of one of the coins were wracked with doubt and plagued by indecision, desperately asking others for advice about what they should do. Some thought the circle meant a trip around the world. Others believed it represented a globe. The cross puzzled a lot of people. A few thought it represented crossing the seas. Others were convinced it was a symbol of death. The majority of people were convinced that the square represented a coffin or an open grave. It was a big risk. Everyone was excited about the prospect of winning one million dollars in cash or an all-expenses-paid trip around the world, but nobody wanted to win third prize. The question was whether the greed for money or the desire to travel were stronger than the fear of death. The people were eager to find out who had devised such a strange competition. Was it a viral marketing campaign? Was it a bored billionaire having fun at the