The Keyrring

THIS may not qualify for the typical ghost story, but thinking about this really boggles me, not to mention gives me chills at times.

I have this sort of lucky charm (if you can call it that) which I have been carrying around with me for two years now. It's one of my four earrings. Actually it's not a ring, it's a small 24-karat gold key. What it actually is remains a mystery since it is barely a centimeter long, but you can see that it is very finely detailed, like it was really made to fit into some really small lock or something. But then why would it be gold?

It was my mother who found it, on the floor in a bathroom (of all places!) in the school where she teaches. She thought it interesting, picked it up and took it home. But she did not have any particular use for it at the time. I came upon it, saw how good it looked attached to one of my earrings and claimed it for my own since then.

Anyway, this keyrring (pun intended), despite how small it is, has never gotten lost. Or if it was lost I would find it after a while, in the un likeliest of places. Twice it slipped from the earring, twice it was found almost immediately.

There was one time when I was mugged by a group of junkies in a grassy lot near my school. One of them hit me so hard in the right side of my face (the keyrring was hanging from my right earlobe then) that it ripped both my earrings off, although I was unharmed. As soon as they fled, my main concern was finding the keyrring in the wild grass. Would you believe it was just lying there, as if beckoning (beckoning and sending out a beacon) to me 'here I am!, yoo-hoo'.

But the time I will not forget was one time it again slipped from my left earring while I was at work. Filled with my usual confidence, I was sure it would turn up. But after searching for it everywhere for a few hours it was just not to be found.

I thought my keyrring gone forever.

That happened an afternoon. I finished work and headed home, trying to push the sadness back from my mind with the notion that it was just a mere thing...right?

I changed clothes, slept, woke up the next day, had a full bath with shampoo and dressed in another set of clothes, sleeveless shirt and short pants. Then I sat on the couch by a window as I read the newspaper. I was caught in the day's news when I hear a soft "plop!" behind me, which sounded like a something tiny yet solid falling from above between my right shoulder and the couch.

It stuck to the sweat on my right shoulder. It was my keyrring. I lost it in the office, five kilometers away, more than fourteen hours ago, how did it get here? It could not have dropped from my right earlobe since I lost it in the left. It could not have got caught in my hair considering the full shampoo I just gave myself. I have also changed a full set of clothes twice.

Where did it come from? The only thing behind the sofa was the lace curtains and the window, one which does not open, mind you.

I was also alone in the house at the time.

Anyway, filled with equal parts of wonder, relief and suspicion, I took my keyrring and clipped it into my left earring...where it still hangs this very moment :-)

Any ideas on how this can be explained?