New York must a place where all things flourish. All the city’s strobe lights, advertisement signs, bill boards and everything that a city needs to be called a city can be found here. Every street by the alleys or person you happened to have a small chat with in the subway gives you inspiration, the drive that the inner person needs to motivate herself to survive. It’s a hodgepodge of races, you have the Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, those somewhere in between, or those in a cross match. It’s one of those places you will know you are familiar with yet still cautiously living in. It’s the Big City culture, they say.
This is a story of a locket. Not just any locket, but a one made of antique gold, subjected to a high temperature to give it its luster that glistens when turned to the sides, carved and embossed in a very intricate pattern of playful spirals and curves. Around it were laurels surrounding the arc of the base that seemed to support a scroll like embossment that held engraved old script cursive letters. In the cover of the locket rests one diamond stud, glimmering in all facets – a finely cut master piece.
It was a Saturday night at the Davidson’s. Hayley just arrived from a day’s work in New York to their old country house in Boston. It was 7:34 in the evening and she was home for the Thanksgiving dinner. She was wearing her usual office clothes, a high waist skirt, some heels, a pair of long sleeves and her locket that she would always wear as a necklace in every ensemble. Her brown hair tied in a messy twist – a typical New York-ean office girl on-the-go hairdo. Exhausted as she was, she sat in the comfort of the couch which smelled of a mixture of spilled orange juice and naphthalene balls. The aroma of the roasting turkey pervaded the atmosphere of the house masking the house’s customary woody smell. It had been six months since she last visited their house and just thought maybe she was just being re-accustomed to the feel of the house she spent her early years. Her sister was playing silently with her doll at the other side of the couch while she unsatisfactorily switched the television from channel to channel. Something caught her sister’s attention and shifted her focus from the doll to Hayley, staring unblinkingly to the woman in front of the TV.
“You know it’s rude to stare, Sandra”, Hayley bolted out as she kept her eyes straight on the flicking channels.
“Can I have it?”, Sandra, her five year old sister asked smilingly with her round, almond eyes, her doll kept snug under her armpit.
“Have what?”, her attention now on her little sister
“The necklace..it’s so pretty. I’ll look pretty as you when I wear that”
Hayley hesitated for a moment but gave in anyway to her sister’s request. “Sure you can have it”, she said. She removed the necklace while her Sandra move towards her, her hands joined like a child receiving a communion. Hayley dropped the locket in her hands. The locket was left carefully nested in her palms, her sister smiling delightfully in her new piece of interest. Sandra tried it on, looked at herself in the mirror smiling like the prettiest girl in the world.
Hayley left the house for the NYC the night after. Sandra kept the locket for a time but then realized that the luster of the locket soon faded. It became just like any other stone, a yellow rock lacking it’s supposed shine. When Hayley returned home weeks after, she found her sister welcoming her in the door step. She was smiling and from her back, she showed her the uninteresting piece of rock that lost it’s luster. After a few moments, the smile she wore was converted into a sure stare.
“I won’t take it anymore... I think it would be better if it stays in New York. It’s more beautiful there. That’s where it is happy. The necklace looks better on you too. So I won’t take it. ”
And there on the spot, she took the necklace from the clasped hands of her sister, gave her a tight hug, and then breathed in heavily and said in an exhale,"Things don’t shine when there is no light to reflect”
Photo from here
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