The Sign
by Matthew Senn
It was 1933, and he was just about to walk out of the house. Almost had a foot out of the door, and when he told the story he’d say, “Was a good thing I didn’t, neither.” As grandpa opened the front door to a blue Texas sky with nary a blemish, something came down from above, pierced the porch roof above him and landed beneath the patio floorboards through the second hole it made.
“Could see the wisps of smoke on edges a both holes.”
“So, it was hot?”
“It was damn hot.”
Whatever it was. Word spreads fast when there’s nothing to do but work in the day and drink the night. Soon enough farmers, locals, and just about anybody else who’d heard tell made their way out to the lonely homestead in the Panhandle to see the rock that fell from the sky.
At one point, Grandpa was charging a nickel to see it. But then, like in all places, the word spoils and no one really gives two shits anymore. Grandma told him he should give it away. He said she told him, “Enough was enough.” He had his fun with it. She even told him one of the fellas who gave a nickel was from the local university. Said it was a meteorite. Said he’d have to check, but he was sure that the university would pay.
Grandpa said no.
He passed it down to my daddy, then daddy passed it down to me. I still have it, just the same as it was in Grandpa’s house: buried in the back corner of an extra closet. Grandma put it there. Grandpa wanted to keep it on the lawn, but she thought it too ugly.
Didn’t find out ‘til years later, when my own daddy got up in his years. He got drunk one night and said Grandpa told him that it wasn’t just a rock that fell from the sky. It was a sign. A sign from God to not leave. He told daddy he was gonna leave Grandma on that beautiful Texas morning. But he took it as a sign, and it made him laugh how much she hated it.
During his last weeks, though, daddy told me Grandpa was wrong.
Weren’t no sign. Just a rock that fell from the sky.
The Molotov Cocktail 