{"id":2525,"date":"2023-07-19T23:07:30","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T03:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/?page_id=2525"},"modified":"2023-07-19T23:07:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T03:07:30","slug":"the-necklace","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/?page_id=2525","title":{"rendered":"The Necklace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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June Freeman Baswell<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Issue 16<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Flash Fiction<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Bob gave me the necklace the year the King Tut exhibition opened in New York City. I wore it almost every day for forty years. It depicted the Egyptian god Horus as a falcon with outspread wings. Made of electroplated gold on nickel and cheaply enameled, it was one of thousands of such trinkets sold that year. More than I loved the necklace itself, I loved that Bob remembered how much I adored ancient Egyptian culture. An interest in past civilizations was one of the things we shared. We traveled the ancient world together on PBS, awed by its mystery and romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several years ago I lost the necklace, and now he\u2019s gone, too. I hunted everywhere in the house. In all the drawers. Under all the furniture. I even emptied out the hall closet. Nothing. I know it\u2019s here somewhere. He\u2019s here, too, though I can\u2019t see him any more than I can see that necklace. He\u2019s in the vignettes of Cleo, my dog, and Caesar, his cat, that he teased from a thin round of birch with a jigsaw blade even thinner. In the box with dovetail joints put together with such care and precision. In our daughter\u2019s face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The necklace I ordered to replace Bob\u2019s was a disappointment. The colors were not as brilliant; the electroplate was thinner. The chasing on the back of the pendant was not as skilled and the chain was flimsy. There was no glinting of life, of love, in the metal. I tossed it in with the tangle of necklaces in the bottom of my jewelry box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I wear Bob\u2019s wedding ring on my left hand beneath mine. How slender and fine his fingers were. And how clever. The past and the present, some say, exist at the very same time. I don\u2019t know that I believe that. I\u2019m not sure I want to. And yet, I yearn to revisit the day when Bob first clasped the necklace around my neck with those sure and steady hands. When I could see and touch him<\/em>\u2014not just the artifacts he left behind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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June Freeman Baswell<\/strong>, a native of Greenville, South Carolina, lives and writes just a few miles from her birthplace. Her stories and poems have appeared in several small literary magazines including The Petigru Review<\/em>, The moonShine Review<\/em>, and Thema<\/em>. In 2018, she placed second in the Carrie McCray competition for short fiction and third in poetry. In 2022 she received the Hub City\/Emrys prize for fiction for her short story, \u201cScheherazade.\u201d Endlessly curious, she loves to make people laugh. She is currently revising a comic, romantic, metafictional fantasy novel, inspired by the work of Flann O\u2019Brien, but having little resemblance to it. Ever the optimist, she already has a sequel in the works.
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\"\"<\/a>
Read “Ad Magic<\/a>“<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Read “Gifts for Men<\/a>“<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Read “Le mot medical juste<\/a>“<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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June Freeman Baswell Issue 16 Flash Fiction Bob gave me the necklace the year the King Tut exhibition opened in New York City. I wore it almost every day for forty years. It depicted the Egyptian god Horus as a falcon with outspread wings. Made of electroplated gold on nickel and cheaply enameled, it was one of thousands of such trinkets sold that year. More than I loved the necklace itself, I loved that Bob remembered how much I adored ancient Egyptian culture. An interest in past civilizations was one of the things we shared. We traveled the ancient world together on PBS, awed by its mystery and romance. Several years ago I lost the necklace, and now he\u2019s gone, too. I hunted everywhere in the house. In all the drawers. Under all the furniture. I even emptied out the hall closet. Nothing. I know it\u2019s here somewhere. He\u2019s here, too, though I can\u2019t see him any more than I can see that necklace. He\u2019s in the vignettes of Cleo, my dog, and Caesar, his cat, that he teased from a thin round of birch with a jigsaw blade even thinner. In the box with dovetail joints put together with such care and precision. In our daughter\u2019s face.  The necklace I ordered to replace Bob\u2019s was a disappointment. The colors were not as brilliant; the electroplate was thinner. The chasing on the back of the pendant was not as skilled and the chain was flimsy. There was no glinting of life, of love, in the metal. I tossed it in with the tangle of necklaces in the bottom of my jewelry box. Now I wear Bob\u2019s wedding ring on my left hand beneath mine. How slender and fine his fingers were. And how clever. The past and the present, some say, exist at the very same time. I don\u2019t know that I believe that. I\u2019m not sure I want to. And yet, I yearn to revisit the day when Bob first clasped the necklace around my neck with those sure and steady hands. When I could see and touch him\u2014not just the artifacts he left behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2525","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}