The Urn

cmsampson3819 stories

Follow

Summary

Orville Peterson was nothing special. Just a research engineer at Reardon-Mantle Designs. That was what he told anyone who asked. But there was no one in the small town of Laconia, TN who was close to him these days who felt that way following his intervention to exonerate his old friend, Sarah Holding, from having been convicted of the murder of another good friend in town, Joe Garrity. How that had come to pass though was the stuff of legend and suspending rational belief in all things tangible. From the jungles of Guatemala and the legend of La Mala Hora to the stress of a transient ischemic attack (TIA) that perpetuated Orville’s questioning of his own belief in this legend plus some inexplicable experiences of his own back in rural Tennessee, Orville found himself wondering what was real anymore. It was, however, the small, curious porcelain green urn that he bought on a whim at a community garage sale in town that tied it all together for him in the end. How so you might ask? Fair question, as Orville often said to friends. It had been just another ordinary day in Laconia for Orville when he purchased the urn that that he saw as only a nice decorative piece for his fireplace mantle. And in the beginning that was true. But what would you do if you had been in Orville’s shoes and later discovered that the urn you purchased on a whim was, unbeknownst to you, already filled