Smooth. Round. Hard. Its shape delights me. I think about it while I’m playing tennis with Sam. I want to reach inside of my pocket to make sure that it’s safe. Sam might find it weird if he saw me rubbing it inside of my pocket. We have been high level acquaintances for 10 years now. I don’t waste time making friends because they will eventually leave or stab you in the back. Sam is my only friend, except for the little friend in my pocket. I never go anywhere without it, except for that one time I was heading to Australia, and I had forgotten it on its silver shaped hand pedestal that I had built for it. I decide to reach into my pocket to make sure that it’s still there. Ah! Smooth. Round. Hard.
I have had this tiny marble since I was 8. A friend of my mother’s named Larry gave it to me. That’s a name that you never hear nowadays, Larry. If any name deserves to fade away it’s Larry. Larry was a mechanic for a car dealer two towns over. That is why my mother sometimes stayed at his house instead of coming home. She would leave me home alone, but I wasn’t scared because it was safer at home than at Larry’s house. Larry gave the marble to me for my silence. Smooth. Round. Hard. It may seem out to care about a marble, but what Larry didn’t know was that the marble is very rare and it was from WWII Germany.
The one time that I forgot the marble was on a trip to Australia. The airplane was heading down the runway, I felt inside my pocket, and it wasn’t there. Panic. I quickly grabbed my backpack from under the chair in front of me. I unzipped, pour things out, put things back in, rezipped, then did it again, and again. I couldn’t find it. I quickly jumped out of my seat, opened the overhead bin, grabbed my suitcase, opened it, and poured the contents all over the floor.
“Ma’am get back into your seat!” I could hear the flight attendant yelling at me, but I decided to ignore her.
“Hey, you should get back into your seat, or they will throw you off,” said the guy taking up two seats.
“Mind your business! Besides they can’t throw me out since we are in flight.” I could not find the marble. I knew I had left it at home on its pedestal. I needed to go back home.
“Ma’am, get back to your seat now or you will be in trouble,” the angry flight attendant shouted again.
“I don’t care! I need to go home now!”
“Ma’am! Get back to your seat now!”
“Excuse me, but you need to get back to your seat now,” came a booming voice from a mall cop who was carrying a gun in a holster. He flashed it to me.
“I can’t because I lost my marble.”
“I understand that, but you still need to get to your seat or there will be consequences.”
“But I left my marble home, and I can’t do anything without it.”
“Sometimes I feel like I have left my marbles at home too, but we still have to carry on.”
“I’m not crazy! I left my marble at home. You don’t understand. This airplane must turn round.”
“Ma’am if I can find another marble on the plane would that help?”
“No! I need my marble. It is lost!” I could hear myself getting angry at the fake policeman. Also, the other people were getting angry at me too.
“Lady, get in your seat!”
“She really has lost her marbles!”
“Yes, all of them!”
“Make it stop!
“Shut her up!”
“Kick her off the plane now!”
“Yes!” They all agreed on something.
“Ma’am, please get back to your seat,” said the former mall cop. “I have been patient with you, but now I will have to get rough and I don’t want to.”
“I have to pack up my suitcase. Everything is all over the floor.” The mall cop started to grab me, but I moved too quickly for him. I jumped up and ran toward the front of the airplane. He started after me, but he tripped over my sweats and lingerie. Unfortunately, I didn’t get far. A second mall cop jumped up from his seat and tried to capture me, but he caught my legs and I fell over hitting my head on someone’s armrests.
Smooth. Round. Hard.
“Where am I? Why am I in handcuffs? Let me go! I need to go home!”
“You aren’t going anywhere until we land!” Mall cop had handcuffed me to my seat, and he was now sitting next me. I was trapped here for the duration of the flight.
Once we landed, the mall cop walked me off the airplane to the cacophony of clapping and cheering from the passengers of flight UA 1227 to Australia. I was taken into custody, eventually released with a fine, and told to never fly United again. I was able to get onto a flight the next day back to New York. Back to my marble. It was on its pedestal where I had left it. I had promised to never leave it behind again. Larry had taken something from me, and I had kept something precious from him. Smooth. Round. Hard.
This week’s prompt: “Ethan Canin said that he wrote “The Accountant” (in The Palace Thief) because he wanted to write a story in which a pair of socks seemed important. Pick an ordinary object. Make it someone’s obsession.
Write a story about the obsession.”
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