Insomniac Nightmares

They said it was cursed. Maybe it was. If so, it wasn’t aware of it.

Of course, being nothing but a simple ruby brooch, it wasn’t exactly of a mind to say. It wasn’t aware of the new gold chain that had been attached to it, didn’t know the pin that had previously adorned its back was gone, hadn’t the slightest idea that it had been set into an attractive black velvet box and placed underneath a spotlight to make its gold glimmer and its facets shine. It wasn’t aware of much, that is to say, being just a brooch.

Other things it was unaware of included that the jeweler who first took hold of the raw ruby and cut it into a multifaceted oval shape had spent his final day buffing and polishing until it gleamed like fire. Once he was done, he set it on the counter for the metal worker to make the setting in the morning, went home, ate a lovely homecooked meal and then proceeded to murder his wife and two children before committing suicide by drinking drain cleaner. The ruby didn’t know; how could it? It was only a ruby.

It also didn’t know that, once the matter of ownership over the jeweler’s shop had been established and someone was finally available to create the setting, once that setting was made the man stepped into the street without looking and was immediately run over by a bus. The bus driver claimed he’d tried to stop, but the brakes wouldn’t respond until it was already too late. The brooch didn’t know about any of that, either.

It didn’t know that the lady who had commissioned the brooch would die of a blood infection after accidentally pricking herself. It couldn’t have known that its second owner – alongside her family and all of her possessions – would perish in a house fire the night she brought it home. It was, being aware of itself at least, somewhat able to know it was alone in being undamaged by that fire, however.

Now it was here, at Sotheby’s, with a small card in front of it declaring some of its history, of how it had been altered from a brooch into a pendant after some damage had been done to the pin – though, as with all the rest, the pendant was unaware that the individual who had accidentally dropped it, damaging the pin in the first place, had OD’d on a combination of ecstasy and heroin, or that the one who had made the alterations and repairs had suffered a heart attack minutes after attaching the clasp – and with a discreet number written in the corner of the tag.

It was not aware of the number, and wouldn’t have cared if it had been. It was aware, however, that soon it would be going home again, and that it was hungry.