Since I was young, I’ve always had an appreciation for antiques. I don’t dislike modern things or anything - I’m typing this on my phone - but they just don’t make things like they used to. Old stuff tends to be so ornately detailed, and I find it almost incomprehensible that most of it was made by hand.
When I started my sophomore year of college and moved out of the school dorms, I was excited to have an apartment to myself that I could decorate however I wanted to.
It wasn’t that my roommate had disliked my antique decorations, but we lived in a shared space. His gaming system and solid blue bedsheets just… took away from the ‘old-timey’ feeling of the place.
I was even more excited when I saw the antique shop maybe a block from my new apartment. I restrained myself from visiting the shop until I’d moved all of my furniture and existing decorations into my apartment to try to prevent myself from buying something that I’d have no place to put. I did that far too often, and I am a bit ashamed to admit that I still have a few lamps in storage after impulse buying them at an estate sale.
But with my furniture finally moved, I could finally go check out that shop. The building was one story tall and wooden, painted pale blue. It looked a bit out of place surrounded by modern homes and businesses, but that’s just how this town was - old buildings from the small village that had once been here mixed in with the modern buildings of the city today. The windows were made of dark glass that I couldn’t quite see through, adding an element of mystery to what treasures the shop may hold.
I turned the old brass doorknob - one of those oval shaped ones that you had to rattle a bit before it actually turned - and entered the shop. Inside, it was dimly lit by dozens of old lamps. This was my favorite sort of antique shop, cluttered with heaps of old things that seemed to be waiting for shoppers to discover them. The air smelled like dust and wood varnish and old books, and it was almost entirely silent except for my footsteps against the threadbare carpeting.
After spending maybe half an hour perusing porcelain teacups, tarnished silver brooches, moth-eaten rugs with intricate patterns, and a few dusty old maps, my eye caught on something on the other side of the shop.
Sparkling in the light of a few lamps was a red vase. The light filtering through the glass produced a sort of red aura of light around the bottom of the vase. Now, when I say it was red, I don’t mean the normal sort of red that you usually see in old blown glass. While that translucent cranberry color is beautiful, it paled in comparison to the brilliant scarlet of this vase. It almost seemed opalescent, reflecting rainbows beneath its surface, and some illusion of the light made it look like something like wisps of dark smoke were moving deep within.
The surface of the vase was carved with intricate symbols, most of which I didn’t recognize. I had to admire the craftsmanship- despite the intricacy of the symbols, the vase was virtually without flaw. It was captivatingly beautiful in the strangest of ways, and I almost couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.
I didn’t even bother to check the price tag before grabbing the vase off of its shelf and carrying it over to the check out counter. If I had enough money to purchase it, I could adjust the rest of my budget to make up for however much I spent. I had to have this vase. It was perfect.
The shopkeeper, a chubby old man with salt-and-pepper hair tied into a ponytail, looked at me quizzically when I presented the vase.
“No price tag on that. Where’d you find it? We tag everything when it comes into the shop,” he asked.
“It was just over there, on that shelf,” I relied, gesturing to where I’d taken the vase from.
“Oh, well. I suppose with this many knick knacks one or two are bound to slip past me. Let’s go with $75. That’s how much large vases usually go for here.”
That wasn’t too terrible. I handed him my debit card and paid for the vase
By the time that I left the shop, it had started to rain. I tucked the vase into one side of my jacket, holding it there to shelter it from the elements. Even though my logical mind told me that there was no way that the rain would damage the glass, it just didn’t feel right to let the vase be exposed to the elements.
The walk back to my new apartment went by like a blur. As soon as I returned to my bedroom, I placed the vase on the intricately carved wooden side table by my bed.
The red glass glittered in the dim light of my window, those opalescent flakes in the glass sparking like a thousand stars. The wispy smoke that seemed to move beneath the surface was more pronounced now, like some great sea creature writing away beneath the carved surface of the glass. It was impossibly beautiful, and I sat down on the edge of my bed to just stare at the vase.
I couldn’t tell quite how long had passed before I finally tore my eyes away from the hypnotizing red glass, but, by the time I finally did, it was dark outside. Had I really sat there for hours? It felt like only 15 or maybe 30 minutes.
Well, I supposed it was what it was. I quickly brushed my teeth and changed into comfortable sweatpants before going to sleep, the soft red glow of the vase gently illuminating the insides of my eyelids as I drifted off.
My dreams that night were strange. I stood in the middle of a vast desert with black sand. The sky was full of thousands more stars than I’d ever seen before, even that one time that I travelled to the American west, miles away from any light pollution. It almost reminded me of those photographs taken by telescopes, the ones with smoky nebulas in shades of orange and purple and blue.
Some of the stars looked massive, as if they were far closer tome than any other star I’d ever seen. Or maybe they were just that massive. I didn’t recognize any constellations here.
In front of me was an impossibly tall pyramid, colored a blue so deep that it almost looked black. It was almost as if the pyramid was full of water.
As I grew closer, I realized this to be true. A squid, at least four times the size of a bus but still dwarfed by the sheer size of the pyramid, drifted by before once again disappearing into the shadows. Something I could only describe as a sea serpent, somewhere between an eel and a snake, only as thick around as my torso but so long that I couldn’t see all of it at once, swam lazily through the water a bit higher up on the pyramid.
Dozens of other strange sea creatures including what I could swear was one of those dinosaur-era ocean monsters swam in an out of my view, none of them seeming to notice me.
At least, none noticed me until an octopus, maybe a bit larger than average but otherwise unremarkable, swam directly up to the side of the pyramid closest to me and met my eyes directly.
Something about its intense stare made my blood run cold. I turned away, staring back at the endless stretch of featureless black sand dunes.
Then, a beeping noise began to sound. I awoke slowly, slamming my hand into the off button on my alarm clock. What a strange dream. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so abnormal. I often had extremely vivid dreams. Side effect of blood pressure medication, my doctor said. But something about that dream just felt more… real.
I supposed it didn’t really matter. I had to get to class before my professor gave me yet another tardy.
That day, I found it near impossible to focus on anything my professors were saying. All I could think about was that dream and that beautiful red vase.
The moment I got back to my apartment, I immediately sat back down on the edge of my bed to stare at my vase. The shadows beneath its surface looked something like the many arms of a squid or octopus, or maybe a coiled up serpent, and the opalescent flakes glittered like the stars from my dream. Staring at it, I felt the same serenity I had in that dream before the octopus locked eyes with me.
Before long, I was back in that black desert. My first though was that I must’ve fallen asleep. My second was that the previously pitch black sand now glowed very faintly red. Just like my vase, it was alien and captivatingly beautiful. I fell to my knees and began running my fingers through the sand, which I now realized was not sand but millions upon millions of tiny, smooth pieces of black and dark red glass. It reflected colors like a prism in the light of the alien stars.
I looked around me, taking in the beauty of the dunes of sparkling glass, and I suddenly came to the realization that I was the only thing, person or otherwise, visible in any direction I looked. Even the great pyramid was absent. I was simultaneously comforted and unsettled by the complete solitude. Getting to my feet, I began to wander aimlessly in a randomly selected direction for no reason other than to see if there was anything past the dunes.
While no landmarks made themselves known, a strange animal slowly made its way over a nearby dune. It was maybe the size of a large dog, it’s appearance a bizarre amalgamation of an elephant, a dolphin, a raven or maybe a crow, an octopus, an ape, and a distinctly human pair of eyes and hands. I couldn’t tell exactly how many limbs it had in the dim light, and the reddish glow of the glass sands muddled it’s colors.
It was, by all accounts, alien and hideous. But I wasn’t scared of it. Its gaze was soft but piercingly intelligent, staring at me with the same passive interest with which one might watch a trail of ants carrying crumbs. A smile curled across a mostly lipless mouth, revealing beaklike ridges where one would expect teeth. It was an uncanny mockery of a human grin, like the gummy smile of a toothless baby, but it wasn’t hostile.
Unsure but not wanting to somehow offend the creature, I smiled back.
Then, I woke once again to the sound of my alarm clock. “Shit!” I cursed aloud, realizing that I’d dozed off before I could finish my homework. Only a month into my sophomore year of college, and I was already going to have a missing homework assignment in at least one class. Well, I supposed I’d have to accept the zero in my first class, but maybe I could work on the assignments for my other classes in any moments of free time throughout the day.
That plan, it turned out, wasn’t possible. I could barely focus on the class I was in, let alone doing work for other classes. All I could think of was my dreams over the past few nights and that vase with its serene red glow.
During my lunch break, I really did plan to walk down to that cheap taco cart a few blocks off campus. Instead, I found myself back in my apartment, staring at that vase again. It was so beautiful. Looking at it for a few moments couldn’t hurt anything.
Soon, I was dreaming again. Or maybe I wasn’t dreaming? I could still see my bedroom. It was more like the black glass desert was layered over it, as if I was both places at once somehow. But that wasn’t possible, was it?
My attention was ripped away from the impossibility of the scene before me when k became aware of my bedroom door opening. A figure that should’ve been too tall for my doorframe stepped through. It was more or less androgynous, but something about it seemed feminine somehow. But it was dressed in what I recognized as Freemason ceremonial robes, which wouldn’t have made sense for a female.
I’m not entirely sure why the issue of its gender registered to me before the fact that it’s neck ended as a stump, a four-sided stone pyramid floating a few inches above where it’s head should’ve been. A single enormous eye stared at me from the center of the side of the pyramid that seemed to be the front, it’s expression unreadable.
It spoke to me in three voices at once, one of a small child, one a young woman, and one an old man. “Would you like to see as I see?” the voices asked.
“Yes,” I heard my own voice saying, though I did not consciously decide to speak.
Suddenly, the world around me changed.
Have you ever seen long exposure photography where things were moving? It was kind of like that, only not. I could simultaneously see every instant that this place had ever existed. I saw myself laying in bed and walking through the door and looking out of the window. I saw the previous tenants of the apartment and maybe the once that would come after me as well, all of their decor layered over mine.
I could also see this place as it was before an apartment complex was built, the forest that once grew here and all of the animals, current and extinct, that had ever lived here. I suppose this area of land had been underwater once, as I could see a shadow of water and prehistoric sea creatures like a ghostly image over everything. And then there were millions of stars and plumes of stardust, from before the Earth was even here.
There was also a ghostly image of myself, sitting, staring at that vase right next to where I now sat. I was thin an atrophied, and I couldn’t quite tell if I was alive or dead. I saw police around a body bag and a confused first responder staring at the bag that I knew contained my body.
I was going to die here, staring at that vase.
“What is this?!” I demanded to know.
The pyramid headed figure replied, each of its three voices speaking in different tones, one sad, one serious, and one lightly amused. “You are seeing all that has ever been here and all that ever will be,” it replied. “Would you like to see the whole world as I do? You seem the curious type.”
“Yes,” I spoke again before I could really consider my words.
It’s hard to describe exactly what I saw next. In the span of a few seconds, I watched life evolve on the earth. I saw great empires rise and fall. I heard the words of geniuses and the ramblings of madmen and found that I could not tell them apart. I saw every conspiracy and coverup and every bit of arcane knowledge lost to time. Every bit of history that led up to this moment flashed before my eyes, from the great battles of Rome to the isolated life of an indigenous woman.
I watched the travels of the beautiful red vase, drifting between owners but always winding up back in a different antique shop. Somehow, the sane shop never seemed to house the vase twice.
I could feel my finite human mind rejecting the influx of information, centuries of history overloading my memory which only had space for around a hundred years.
By the time that my mind finally processed as much information as it could hold and rejected what it couldn’t, the figure was gone. I’m not sure why it showed me what it did. I don’t know why I was the one who found the vase. What I do know is that I’m dying soon. I can no longer bring myself to get up for food or water, can’t bring myself to look away from that vase. My eyes are painful, dry and almost certainly bloodshot now, as even blinking takes effort.
My body will be found soon, muscles atrophied from lack of food and movement. This is the only way I can tell anyone what happened to me. I know that most people will brush this off as a creative writing exercise, but at least they’ll read it.
I don’t have much time left. It physically hurts me to look away from the vase, and staring down at my phone keyboard to type this up is agony.
I know you won’t believe this happened. The police certainly won’t. I wonder what they’ll rule my cause of death?
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I get this story out there so that you know what really happened.
I don’t know if it’s possible to not buy the vase once you see it, but try. If you see that beautiful, strange vase, if it makes it’s way to an antique shop near you, do not buy it.