The Old Ring

One summer day, JW was digging around in a pile of burned trash he found way back in the woods behind his house. It wasn't the first pile he'd found and he was sure it wouldn't be the last. Sometimes they had cool stuff like glass coke bottles from 1950 or rusty keys he could add to his rusty key collection. Once he even found a pocket watch that still worked, so they were always worth checking out.

This particular pile was hidden in a ditch that ran along a dirt road nobody (save him) had driven down all year. It had been sunny and breezy all day, perfect weather for wandering on foot. Logic dictated that nothing scary would come for him in broad daylight because he'd been lucky so far. It also reassured him that Deuteronomy hadn't felt the need to join him as a guide; she was too busy watching her shows.

JW steadied himself with a Good Stick as he straddled the ditch and picked through the unwanted things. He used his long spindly fingers like a raccoon fishing for crawdads. Sure enough, he found a couple of keys (why do people insist on burning keys around here?) and a miraculously unbroken mirror the size of a jelly jar lid.

Thunder rolled in the late August sky. JW hadn't brought an umbrella on this particular excursion, so he slipped his trinkets into a shirt pocket and gave the ashes a last look. If he hadn't looked that last time, everything that came to pass could have been entirely avoided. He wouldn't have gotten a story out of it though, and well, you can decide if it was worth it.

But he did look and when he looked he saw a perfect circle shining in the shadow of a kudzu leaf. He snatched it and held the thing up to his good eye. When he turned it in his fingers, the afternoon sun glinted along its patinated curve.

It was a ring.

Nothing flashy, no precious stones to be found here, but it was tooled nicely with patterns of what looked like leaves or maybe feathers. It was heavy for its size and it looked like it just might fit him. JW had never been one to wear rings, but how often do you find a perfectly good jewelry in a ditch? Maybe the girl at the antique shop would like it…

He pushed the ashy dirt out of its center with his thumb and slid it on without a second thought.