I found something diabolical and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. Something evil, something that corrupts and confuses. Something that will trick you without realizing it, as it did me and who knows how many countless others.
I am a smart shopper. I don’t like to spend more than is needed. It frustrates me to come across a sale I could have taken advantage of if I hadn’t bought and used something earlier. I cut coupons, I tighten my belt even when I don’t need to and I steal the towels from hotels. For people like me, one of the best things you can do is bid on abandoned storage containers and get much more than you paid for.
I did that one day, but the container I bid on was by accident.
There were four of us. Not the friendliest people, so just like me. I could see the same sort of greed in their eyes. It wasn’t about making it big - it was just about getting something more. I think they got just that. Most of the containers had sealed boxes, plastic containers, and maybe an occasional covered object with a bizarre shape.
We placed our bids. I lost every single one of them. The money in my pocket was more valuable than whatever imagined treasures I saw in those boxes. It was pretty exciting nonetheless, but that excitement petered out once we reached the last container. Stacks of clothes and rusted, broken crap.
Nobody was bidding. It got as low as a dollar, then two, then five, and seemed to hang there for a moment - until I raised my hand. I don’t know if I was scratching my nose or stretching. I just raised my hands, and the auctioneer pointed at me and said “I have ten!”.
I was surprised and I could have withdrawn, but having made that accidental bid, I looked at the container of junk and resigned myself to taking the hit. Ten bucks is nothing really and maybe someone will bid higher. If they did, I would let them have it. Nobody did. We listened as the auctioneer said with an exasperated sigh that my ten dollars had it. The other bidders were already making their way to their containers as he did.
“It’s all yours,” he told me. “You can pay at the desk, Pamela will go through the details with you.”
I had bought my first storage container and it was thoroughly underwhelming. Still, I did what he said, retrieved my truck, and backed it up to the container. I was just going to put stuff in the truck and go through it when I got home. I used trash bags to hold all the clothes and loose stuff. The rest was boxed and ready to go.
The funny thing is, I did feel pretty good when I piled the junk up in my garage that afternoon. Looking at it, it had to be worth more than ten dollars. It wasn’t a million, it wasn’t big, but it was more. With a sprinkling of satisfaction, I closed the garage and left to make myself something to eat.
Watched dumb videos on my laptop, ate leftover mac-and-cheese which tasted better than it did the day before, and came back to start sorting through the garbage I bought. I even set up some music on my cellphone, headphones pumping tunes into my ears. My spirits were high.
I wasn’t a third of the way through the junk before I started to pause and look around. I thought I heard someone call my name, but I lived alone. It was a disconcerting feeling, but then I just blamed the music. Countless times I had made that mistake, hearing someone call my name in a song.
I blame my parents.
It wasn’t until the song ended that I heard it. A cool voice speaking to me in the moment of silence before the next song began. I looked down at my phone, paused the music, and took off my headphones. I could hear it, even if it was somewhat muffled by a box.
“Here,” it said. “Second box from your right.”
As if I didn’t know exactly which box the voice was coming from. All I could think to do was stare at it and then look around for a possible source. I wasn’t freaking out, I was just…doubtful. It didn’t speak again, it just waited. It didn’t wait long before I opened the box and pulled out more clothes, eventually finding it in the middle.
A black iron crown.
That’s the only way I could think to describe it then. I didn’t think it was a part of some machine or just some scrap metal. I knew it was a crown when I saw it, I knew it was a crown when I picked it up - it had some serious weight to it. No jewels, just three equal spikes pointing up near what I assumed to be the front.
“Wear me,” it said.
“What the fuck?”
“Wear me,” it repeated “I will make it all clear to you.”
“I’m not going to wear you,” I told it, examining the sharp-looking spikes. The edges along them were rough, but not rounded. I realized I replied to it. “What am I even saying?”
It felt like I had found something wrong. Something dangerous. The appearance, the weight of it. It seemed unpleasant to look at as much as to hold. It weighed on me, it weighed on my mind.
“Don’t be afraid,” it said. “You have nothing to fear.”
“But I am afraid,” I said, unable to stop my mouth from speaking my mind. “What are you?”
“I am what you believe I am.”
“What I see is a hunk of metal that shouldn’t be able to talk.”
“I speak to you with good intentions. I see you are troubled, troubled with many sins. It is not by chance you found me. I have come to you to ease these burdens, not add to them.”
I was overwhelmed. To say I was confused would be an understatement, but more than that, the words themselves reached me. I could sense the purpose in them, only recognize what they meant…if that makes sense. It’s like I heard what it was saying, I just couldn’t grasp the power of those words.
“Ease your concerns. I will not force healing upon you, nor will a graft strength onto your form without permission. Clay that is unyielding only crumbles in hand. I will speak to you the following night. Rest easy, you need not think about what I say just yet.”
The feeling left - that feeling of something being in the same room as me. The crown remained, just as heavy. That didn’t stop me from examining every inch of it, scratching at small edges with nails as if I would find anything other than solid metal. A speaker, batteries, a hidden release. Anything that made…sense.
I only wasted my time. I placed the crown on a bench near my truck, and eyed the rest of the junk - I stared through it, lost in thought. I slept a dreamless sleep, waking up to a new day. Warm sunlight, birds chirping, and…nothing. It all felt a little empty.
I’m not good at this. I’m not good at speaking, let alone writing. These words I write seem to lack meaning as I read them, but they are the only words I have that come anywhere close to the truth. The sheer surreal insanity of it - although insanity was the last thing that crossed my mind. I knew I was still mentally capable, which made it all the more worrying.
And as promised, the voice returned that night.
I was in my living room, staring at the sunset out the window. As the sun dipped below the horizon and the last shades of orange died into purple, I heard it call. A voice echoed in the garage, telling me it had returned.
“What are you?” I asked it again, not feeling even a little shame in talking to a crown.
“You already know what I am,” was its answer. “And you will know more when you wear me. Your fears will be quietened, your pain lessened and your sins dissolved.”
“Why would wearing you…this crown…help me with all that?”
“It is a matter of faith. Even now your doubts and fears keep you from achieving this. The crown grows heavier…”
As the crown said this, the bench it sat upon groaned.
“…and heavier…”
The wood started to bend and splinter. It was a proper workbench, bolted into metal supports, yet it behaved as if something heavier than a truck rested on it.
“…yet if you were to pick me up, you would find me as light as I was. That is an act of faith.”
I was panicking as it spoke, only catching a few words. I saw one metal support bend. The sound of the bolts being pulled was making my left eye twitch. It was the sound of the threading being stripped, or holes grated. I didn’t know when the wood would finally give away and burst apart as the crown sank through it.
“Pick me up.”
I did as it said, rushing over and lifting the crown off the bench. It weighed as much as it did the night before, yet seeing the workbench relax said otherwise. It was damaged, not fit for holding anything heavier than a few tools - the crown had left a round indent in the middle. I could see three marks for the spikes.
“You see the power of such faith?” the voice said. “You chose to trust in my words, yet, you will find that I am not lighter.”
“What? It weighs much less than what could do that,” I said, looking at the central spike.
“You have been made stronger, strong enough to carry me. Test your strength and see for yourself.”
How could I not? From what I had seen, the crown defied gravity…or perhaps, submitted to it a lot more eagerly. I wanted to test what it said, so I eyed the bench. Moving towards it, I placed a free hand under one of the supports. Before, if I tried hard enough, I could lift the bench slightly. At that moment, I lifted it so effortlessly I flipped it onto its side and the top smacked right into the wall with a loud bang.
It was like a gunshot. I sheltered my head in case something happened. Another bang followed as it dropped in place, but that seemed distant. Instead, I heard many soft voices right by my ear. I realized they were coming from the crown. I lowered my hands and the voices went with it.
“Holy shit!” I said under my breath.
After flipping the bench like it was a plastic plate, I felt incredible. I have never and will never feel that elation, that power, ever again.
“That is what I can do for you through touch,” the crown said. “Wear me and I heal you.”
“I-I…what will-?”
“Don’t let doubts cloud your mind again. Faith. Let the strength of your faith carry you. Trust in me and nothing else.”
I was at my peak. It felt like I had won the lottery and married my crush at the same time. There wasn’t any hesitation. I looked at the crown and my body agreed with my mind fully. My arms raised the crown. I looked up, ready to place it on my head. I could see my warped reflection in the truck’s passenger window.
My eyes were wide open, my smile hurting my cheeks.
The voices from the crown filled my ears.
The glass erupted. Glass poured onto the ground at my feet, across the hood, and inside the truck. Glittering pieces were scattered all around and once more I covered my face just in case. The crown felt cold against my cheek. The illusion was broken at that moment.
“What the hell? Did you do that?” I shouted, putting the crown on the ground and rushing over to my truck. I cursed when I saw the small fragments on the seats and in the footwell. It was going to be a pain to clean and that frustrated the hell out of me.
My high was broken by something that should have been so insignificant in comparison to what the crown was promising. It said as much as I opened the door and more glass poured onto the ground.
I noticed some shards were different. The rear-view mirrors were broken as well. Those were a little easier to replace, but all of the damage combined made for a bad day.
I know how this must make me look, but the truck I own is one of the few things in my life that I sank serious time, money, and effort into. Seeing it come apart like some fragile piece of modern art reached something in me. And it was this interruption that had me looking at things a bit more closely.
Through the broken windshield, I saw the workbench. It was whole. No damage, bends, or splinters. The part of the wall I had flipped it into didn’t have a mark on it. Moving the steering wheel of the truck, it was clear to me that I didn’t have the strength the crown had given me before.
It was a disappointment that the crown must have sensed. It sat on the garage floor, silent as it was still.
“You lied,” I said.
It did not reply. I told it to speak, but I was just wasting my breath. The feeling had faded - I was alone again. Alone and pissed off. I walked around the crown and made my way back into the house. I opened my laptop and started looking up replacement parts for the truck and making the orders.
I was tired and angry by the time I finished. I just turned the lights off in the garage and went to sleep. The next day passed in frustration. I was late for work because I had to ask a friend to give me a lift and they lived pretty far away to begin with. It was short notice, but I only realized I couldn’t drive the truck that morning.
When I was dropped off at home it was night. I had spent an hour outside work waiting for my friend to pick me up again and take me home.
I walked into the garage and looked at the crown. I felt the presence, but it did not speak. I didn’t want to speak to it either. I didn’t think there was a point. My anger had twisted into a sort of hatred I never felt before. It’s not like it was a person, it was a hunk of metal. As strange as it was, it had wronged me in some way…worse still, it had tricked me. Made a fool of me.
I left the garage, deciding I would deal with it the next day. I turned on the TV and tried to calm down. It was better than staring daggers at a piece of iron, expecting it to put truck windows and mirrors back together.
But if that’s something it wouldn’t do, what would I do with the crown?
I had decided to get rid of it. Not to throw it in the trash, but to throw it in the river behind my home. That way no matter how much it calls out to somebody, nobody would hear it and anyone looking for it would never find it. It was the only sensible thing to do with it. Maybe, given enough time, it would rust away into nothing.
I settled into bed and decided that’s what I would do first thing in the morning. Yet, I couldn’t fall asleep. The presence remained and it felt larger than before. I didn’t need to be in the garage to feel the voice was there. I felt it in my bedroom on the other side of the house, as if something stood there, watching over me.
I chose to ignore it as long as I could…and then I heard wood splintering.
I sat up in my bed and reached for the light, but stopped myself. Standing in the doorway was a figure, barely noticeable in the darkness he stood. A man who stood at least a foot taller than me. He would have to duck to walk through the doorway.
He wore a half-skull mask, bleach-white, surrounded by the hood of the red robes he wore. I heard footsteps in the other rooms, telling me that he was not the only one. I heard the garage door open. I heard a humming noise. It was all happening so fast, but I kept a gun on hand. It was beneath the pillow next to mine…my hand had already closed around the handle.
It was only when I realized it was in my hand that the figure standing in the doorway lurched forward. I fired every bullet into his chest and he fell backwards. I was already frantically searching through the top drawer for more when the ground shook with his weight.
When I looked up, two more stood over him.
I stared at them, my hand grasping at nothing in the drawer. I had forgotten to put the bullets on my bedside table. A third figure appeared, wearing the same mask and hood as the others, but this one wore the crown. When the empty sockets that were his eyes locked onto mine, the other two knelt down and lifted the intruder I had shot.
The two didn’t drag him off, they stood him up. He settled onto his feet, alive again. The man with the black crown stepped into my bedroom and was only a few feet away, looking down at me like something greater than a man, worse than a monster.
“What are you?”
“You already know what I am.”
“Please…don’t do anything…to me.”
“I don’t need to.”
The crowned figure’s hand closed around the doorknob and he closed the door behind him. I heard their footsteps fade into nothing. The feeling of their presence faded, yet I dared not climb out of bed, or take a step towards the door. I did not move from my spot in bed, choosing to wait out the night in this half-asleep daze until the morning light flowed between the gaps in the curtains.
My front door was open. Nothing was stolen. There wasn’t any sign of forced entry. I haven’t contacted the police because nothing about what I experienced was something they could resolve. I try to find something to take from the ordeal…not something big, just more. A lesson, but there isn’t any.
I only wonder what would have happened to me if I put on the black crown that talks at night.