Lost and found

I saw it fall. It slipped out of my fingers and my eye caught a quick glint of silver as it arced away from my hand and down to the carpet. Then a nearly inaudible thump as it landed on the carpet and bounced. My eyes tried to follow its pathway; my ears strained for the next sound. Nothing. The earring was gone.

I got down on my hands and knees. Obviously it was right there. There’s maybe two feet of cream carpet – low pile – between the bed frame and the dresser. I had seen it bounce. It couldn’t be far.

My eyes scanned for a gleam of metal or a shot of green. Nothing. I moved a wayward child’s sock which had inexplicably taken up residence next to the bed frame. Not there. I ran my fingers along the bottom edge of the dresser, certain I would quickly encounter the small hard shape of the earring. Nope.

I sat back on my knees and took a deep breath. It had to be here. I had seen it fall. I adjusted the lights. Still no metallic shine from the floor. I changed position and again ran my fingers along the line where the dresser meets the floor. I found a dime but no earring.

Now I began to get desperate. I had seen it. I had heard it. I checked on my dresser. Yes, there sat its companion, waiting. One earring. The other, vanished. This simple fact upended my understanding of the physical universe.

I proceeded to check on top of the bed which is, what? Two feet high? Then I looked on top of my nightstand, at least two feet away from me and, again, about two feet high. Under my pillows? Over near my closet door? As if my earring had developed supernatural powers, I checked the most unlikely of places. No earring. It had completely vanished.

After one last desperate search right where I’d seen it fall, I gave up, defeated. Perhaps it went for a short visit with some of our mysteriously missing socks. Maybe it is waiting for the right moment to pop out and taunt a cat. Could be that it’s just out there in the universe, laughing at me for believing that all lost things can be found.

Afterword: Before I published this, I decided I simply had to go check for the earring one more time. I repeated essentially the same steps as last night, beginning with the sane, careful search then tipping dangerously towards that place where the laws of physics no longer apply. This time, in my final fit of pique, I opened the bottom dresser drawer and started to rifle through it in search of that dang earring. And wouldn’t you know it? There it was, under a shirt in the closed drawer. I am still shaking my head.

Fairies. I just know it.