A Weight Worth Bearing

A Weight Worth Bearing
by Dan The Teacher          


        The locket dangled from his fingers.  Andrew had never really given much thought as to why he had taken it.  At the time he wasn't thinking--it was gold, it looked valuable enough, he needed a bit of cash.  At the time, it was simple as well, it was just there, waiting to be picked up. But the finer details of things in Andrew's life had a way of becoming complicated.

        A conscience is easy enough to rid yourself of, like a bag of bricks, all you really need to do is set it down.  It's easy to slip into rationalization--I really need the money; or apathy--whatever, they'll get over it, it's just a hunk of metal.  The morality people like to drone on about, that's all relative. 

        The locket was small and although Andrew had heard how gold, even in small amounts, weighed heavier than other metals, he could barely feel the object in his hands. But he could feel it. It was there. Light as it was, it was there, weighing down on his palm.  It's outside was engraved with a small floral pattern the intricacy of which was remarkable, and for a knowledgeable craftsmen it would have garnered some measure of appreciation; the impossibly thin lines and swirls twisted and danced on the locket's surface forming a splendid and beautiful rose. But for Andrew it was just a bit of decoration. Something about that rose, however, made him pause and run his index finger slowly over it. The locket's clasp held the piece closed and when opened it gave a nearly imperceptible pop.  Andrew found himself repeatedly opening and closing the small locket, strangely fixated on the subtle sensation of the locket's clasp.

        Inside was a worn picture of, it seemed to him, a somewhat unremarkable woman.  Her unsmiling face was lined with long years and unspecified worries. To Andrew these were just wrinkles in an old woman's skin.  The crows feet that were bookends to her clouded eyes didn't demonstrate anything in particular to him, but between each opening and closing of the locket he was looking at her at longer and longer intervals.  How old was she? he wondered. Why hadn't she smiled in this photo? What was her name?

        The bus ride to the pawn shop on Division was twenty-six blocks, and for twenty-six blocks Andrew isolated himself, shrinking the world down--first to the sounds, and smells, and sights of the bus, then further.  Quickly, and fortunately, the smells of public transportation faded first.  The sounds of coughing passengers and cell phone ringtones were drowned out soon after.  Next, the shifts and bumps of sharp Chicago turns and potholes no longer jostled him so much. Finally, the red, blue, and green lines on the placard which detailed the bus' route and the golden locket  were everything in Andrew's world.

        When the placard finally disappeared Andrew was left with the old woman inside her golden rose.  He noticed that something in the day's sunlight seemed to cause the locket's gold to shine a bit brighter.  And now, it seemed that each bump on the bus' route caused the locket to weigh slightly more in his hand.  The lines in the embossed rose seemed to dance more smoothly, and the lines on the old woman's face showed something he hadn't seen before.  He began to see her more clearly.  He could see her hair, turned grey by concerns about a son who was off, fighting a pointless war, on a godforsaken island in the endless ocean--some place they called the Philippines.  He could see the lines above her brow caused by many long nights of caring for a granddaughter with a cleft palette who struggled and cried out from hunger, unable to drink. 

        When the bus stopped a half block from the shop Andrew instinctively left his seat and began to put one foot in front of the other until he found himself outside of the bus, headed towards his destination.  But as he stepped he found the weight of the locket bearing down on his mind."How much can I really get for this thing?" he quietly asked himself as he continued towards the store.  He opened the locket once more and looked at the Rose inside,  this time he noticed her lips, and, more specifically, the lines that framed them on each side. Laugh lines, he thought; laugh lines? but the rest of her is so sad--so grim.  And soon he began to smile himself. 

        He began to think of a young man whose life may have been a bit grim as well.  A young man who had seen hard things, done bad things, and who like Rose had plenty of regrets--plenty of sad stories.  But then he thought about how, in spite of these things, there was a blue sky above and an open street ahead of him, and his feet carried him past the pawn shop.  He thought about the elation of a mother at the return of a son from a distant war, and the relief of a grandmother at the news of a successful surgery.

          He realized that even hard lives that cause grey hair, and crow's feet, and clouded eyes have moments that inspire hope, and laughter, and joy. That a conscience isn't a bag of bricks, it's a golden locket and it's a weight worth bearing. ​