The Story of the Vanishing Ring
A lost thing, when found, takes on an attitude all of its own, distinct and insistent. Like a curious smell. On the morning that he found the ring nestled between the rocks at the bottom of the shallow parts of the sea, the mountains were still wearing their skirts of gray-white fog. Above the ridges, early morning clouds hover like a smokey wreath. This image would go down in my microfilm of memories as something right out of a children's fantasy book--cheerfully mysterious, safely bizarre. It was a plain gold ring, almost certainly a wedding band. It did not beg to be found. Glinting defiantly under the 7 o'clock sunshine, it dared you to claim it. Small, it also challenged you to speculate. Was it from some young bride, now distressed at the loss? What would she tell her new husband? Would he bite her head off for her carelessness; or would he worry about the money with which to get her a new one? If they were superstitious, would they be filled with unea
