The Antique
“Hey this looks nice, how much is this?” June asked. June was a sculptress who lived in Los Angeles. She stood at one of the tables at a garage sale staring at a peculiar antique. June liked sculpting living people so much that, no matter what happened to them (and they all would die, she supposed) their sculpted bodies would never rot. Her mind started going haywire thinking about the dimensions and blueprints of this pot, and at the same time, she was walking around it like a lion stalking its prey, thinking of the best way to get a hold of it, and where to put this excellent work of art up.
“That pot was made centuries ago,” said the thin lady hosting the sale. She looked like she had many thoughts going on in her head. The pot had the most beautiful curves June had ever seen in her sculpting career, with vivid gold and black designs, and a small lid. She found herself drooling over this pot, a dot of spittle appearing which she licked away.
“This pot will cost you 45 dollars.”
“That’s a good deal!” said June. “I’ll get it!” She picked up the pot, with many thoughts, but somewhere, in her head she said, “Stupid June! you know it’s an antique but why is it so cheap!?” June waved the thought aside and walked over to the cashier (which was just a plastic box with a bunch of coins and money sorted, for change). After paying, June drove home, and while peeling off the price tag as she drove, she wondered about what other purposes other than decoration she could use this for.
I want to make something similar to that when I get home, she thought. Maybe I can make a bigger version of the urn, which will take up a whole room of the art museum a couple miles from here.
Why was that pot so cheap? Her heart was pounding with excitement. Once she got home, she stumbled out of the car. She didn’t even bother to park her car properly. She finally got to the front door, as she was so busy in admiring the pot. She fumbled for the keys at the doorstep and finally got in and placed it on the bookshelf. June lifted the lid up and peered inside.
Her face turned pale like spoiled milk, whiter than the albino man she had seen on the street yesterday. There were someone’s ashes inside the pot!
June’s lungs stopped functioning and her heart skipped – crawling into her throat. The things her eyes saw didn’t register in her head until the anxiety attack ended and she fainted with the pot sitting on the shelf.
* * *
“June… June… JUNE!”
“Whaaaa?” June murmured. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“Oh dear, you don’t know who I am?” The man was also of medium height but very strong, with large biceps and triceps and many other ‘ceps that you might not know of.
“Oh hey George, thank God you’re here.”
“What is it? Why are you on the floor? Are you OK?”
“I went to a garage sale, and I bought this antique pot, but when I got home, I found someone’s ashes in there, and I don’t know, I just passed out!”
“”June next time you should probably be more careful. You are one of the most sensitive people I know.”
George walked over to the pot and took off the lid and peered inside. He saw the grey dust and little chunks of ash that used to be a dead person. George made a sour face and put the lid back on gingerly. That was obviously someone’s remains. The couple started listing the possibilities for action.
“We could flush them down the toilet?” suggested June.
“How about just dumping it in the trash?”
“What about tossing it in the river behind our house?”
“I think brushing the ashes into the sewer would be safer.”
“What if we went to the beach and buried it in the sand?”
There were so many possibilities, but only one out of infinite choices was the correct one: the only correct thing to do was give it back to the garage sale lady.
“Let’s just wait for about a month and see if anyone has lost their relative’s ashes. If they have, we give it back, if not, we could just go and dig a hole and bury it and sell the pot.”
The pot seemed cursed, at least to June. She felt a giant lump of guilt inside her. It was easier just to throw it away and forget about it, but these were human remains! What was the right thing to do? Why were all of the other choices an annoyance?
“We would have to spend so much effort in tracking this person, and what if this person was the wrong one? We should just bury it!” George said.
“But what if the people come looking for it? We will immediately feel guilty; besides, how would you feel if you accidentally sold your dad’s ashes? Wouldn’t you want them back so desperately?”
“Yes but still, it would just be easier to throw it away and forget anything ever happened.”
“Well, we will just give it back to the garage sale woman,” June said, decidedly.
“Maybe at night we could just sneak to her front door and place the pot there so she knows we returned it! But what about the 45 dollars you spent?”
“I’ll ask for it back! Better then, if we tell the lady that we had ashes… what if she wanted to get rid of it?”
“Hmmm. We should do it tonight.”
“Tonight.”
* * *
That evening June barely talked or did anything. She sat still on her bed with a pale, panicked expression. She didn’t even stand up to go the bathroom; nor did she eat or drink.
“It’s time.” George said in a grim tone. June put on her shoes and picked up the keys for the car.
“We shouldn’t drive,” George said firmly.
“Why? How else do you expect us to get there?”
“If we drive there, the woman’s going to find a car parked by her house and may I remind you that it’s 11:30 P.M. Immediately she’s going to get suspicious.”
“Fine.”
When they finally arrived to the house after one whole hour spent navigating and backtracking, June placed the pot at the front door. George also left a note beside the pot saying:
Dear garage sale woman,
I do not want this antique pot anymore. I have done nothing to it and put nothing in it.
Sincerely,
Your neighbor
“That’s good now,” June whispered. The couple started to go back in the direction of their house.
“That was a great solution. I feel no more burden… anymore.”
A car pulled up in the driveway.
“Lie flat on the ground, NOW!” June’s instincts told her that the garage sale lady was inside that car and was about to come out.
“Okay, okay jeez,” muttered George.
They started to army crawl their way over to the bushes where they could hide better. They could only hope the car owner hadn’t seen them. The car owner walked up to the front door and completely ignored the pot and walked in. Only when the door swung open and knocked against the pot did she find out. She picked it up and looked at the letter beside the pot.
The woman stood up and looked around. She put the pot down and walked down the steps and squinted out into the dark, scouting around her lawn like a detective. Eventually she reached the bushes and heard rustling. Two figures stood up from behind the bushes so abruptly the woman shrieked.
“Who are you people!?” There was no answer. June and George just stood there speechless. The woman stood, waiting for them to answer. Petrified, June opened her mouth for words but only a small squealing sound came out.
“We were… uh…um… returning the pot… from… your… uh… garage sale.”
June looked at George but he was still petrified, as if he saw a slender Medusa.
“Well, there are no refunds and it was something I didn’t want – that’s why I put it in the garage sale.”
“But why would you sell someone’s ashes?” George blurted.
“Look. It’s your property now and once again, I said no refunds. Now please get off my property! You just ruined a bed of flowers I planted yesterday.”
“Sorry for stepping on your flowers, I totally think ruined flowers are way more serious than finding someone’s ASHES and not knowing who or where to return them?!” June exclaimed.
“Excuse me! Who do you think you are, coming on my property? I could have you arrested!”
June suddenly became very aware that she was trespassing. “Ma’m, I am so sorry. We came up to knock on your door, and when you pulled up, we just over-reacted.”
“You know, I bought that urn at a garage sale a few months ago! If you hadn’t shown up tonight to give back this pot, I think all of us would be better off. I would be home reading a book with some coffee, while you would doing whatever you do at night after work. But anyway… .” The woman paused. “My name is Julia. What should we do?”
“How about we bury it?” suggested George again.
“NO! FOR THE LAST TIME, WE WILL NOT GET RID OF THE POT THIS WAY! We have to work together and track this person who sold the pot to me. Then that person would be happy their ancestor is back,” June said.
Julia looked up, bravely. “After I found the ashes, I tried to sell it for a cheap price and… I also lied about its age so someone would buy it.”
“We need to… call the police.” George sighed.
“NO NO, don’t do that, that’s silly. We can solve this ourselves,” Julia said.
“Oh, were you trying to solve this when you sold June the pot?” said George.
June turned to Julia. “Why don’t you want to call the police? They’re just going to do the job for us. Plus, it’s so much easier to do that rather than knock on so many doors.”
“No, it’s okay! We can handle this ourselves, it’ll be fine.” Julia said nervously. Her expression was especially hard to read in the dark. “By the way, what are your names? We won’t be able to work together without knowing each other’s names.”
June and George looked at each other and had an understanding. They introduced themselves, and then struck a deal.
“Fine, but if we can’t find this person in less than five days, we call the police,” June said. At this, Julia went pale and sunk back into her doorway. She hoped that June and George couldn’t see her expression in the dark. Julia was anorexic: her thin and and out-of-shape body could not get through enough doors to find the rightful owner. She would collapse right before the lunch she was trying to skip.
“Oh, alright,” she said, finding strength somewhere deep inside. “Why don’t you all come in, I’ll brew a pot of coffee, and we can start planning ahead.”
George stepped into the doorway, eager to have a new cup of coffee. June on the other hand, was not so excited, for she had brought them into this situation; if she hadn’t bought that pot and listened to the voice in her head, she wouldn’t have to worry about all this. But there was no time for self-pity. Five days could go by really fast. She was planning to stay up extra late that night.
“So…um… what do you think we should do?” Julia asked.
“Don’t look at me,” George replied. “I’m only here because my wife is here.”
“I think we should split the job into parts,” June said.
“So maybe I could print out some posters. George could look for any posters that other people put up so we can help return it to them.”
The three waited for the coffee to finish brewing, plotting the week ahead.