Pearls, Shiny Objects, and Mnemonics

Black envelope . . . hmm. Rounded, with no corners. No flaps, no stamp, and no return address. TAT, my initials, inscribed with silver lettering. Weird.

I was sorting my mail on a hot Tuesday into Keep and Throw piles—my standard routine—and the last hurdle between a hard day’s work and an afternoon nap. Nothing good came in the mail anymore, so it seemed. The last time I had thought I was opening something great, possibly a Christmas card from a friend, it turned out to be a subpoena—the equivalent of a $100,000 tax bill and a baseball bat to the head. If I received nothing but junk mail for the rest of my life, I’d be content.

Sort the mail, then bed. Electric bill—keep. Want ads—throw. Bigger bill! Keep. (What choice did I have?) Get-rich-quick scheme—throw. Newspaper for later—keep. Black envelope . . . hmm. Rounded, with no corners. No flaps, no stamp, and no return address. TAT, my initials, inscribed with silver lettering. Weird. I’ve been scammed before, but never again. Nothing good ever came in the mail. I crumpled the envelope, dropped it into the garbage, and angled upstairs toward my beckoning pillow. Ahh!

Misha, the dog, started barking. Most likely a rabbit. I hoped my noise maker would drown her out. No luck. Unfazed, I affixed industrial-strength headphones to my ears and flopped back down. No use. Unbelievable. Finally, I pulled my pillow over my head. Stubborn dog!

Must not be a rabbit.

I staggered downstairs. Misha stood on her hind legs, scratching and chewing at the trash can door. I pulled the garbage bin out. She dove in headfirst, retrieved the black envelope, tossed it into my lap, and dropped into her expectant crouch. Mouth open, panting. Terrible breath.

Misha liked to play catch, but her frisbee lay in the corner. I sniffed the scrap of mail. Did it smell to her like some furry animal? Impossible. She would have never surrendered such a treasure. I stared into her blue-brown eyes. “What do you know that I don’t?”

I sliced the thin black jacket open with a surgical knife after my fingers and teeth proved inadequate to the task. Inside lay a glossy, dark wafer, translucent and feather-light—a paper-thin disc. When I shook it to test its heft, it crackled in my palm and curled upward around the edges. It transformed by stages into a perfect sphere, then shrank severely, brightening as it compressed and coalesced into a pea-size, iridescent pearl.

Misha sprang to her feet, knocked the jewel from my hand, and swallowed it.

“You silly dog! What are you doing? Spit it out.” I had no expectation she would obey me. She was half husky, her mouth a one-way street to the grave. The only thing that ever crossed her teeth in the reverse direction was her tongue. Her red, hot, salivating, flapping tongue, that bobbed with every joyful breath.

But then, to my surprise, Misha convulsed and threw up the pearl. Had she listened to me? Doubtful. The sparkling ornament rolled across the kitchen floor, dropped down the stairs, pursued a wildly circuitous course across the cement floor, and lodged in the furnace room by a dusty box labeled, “Medical Pearls, 1991.” I pocketed the ornament and opened the box.

To be continued . . .

---

---

---