Life Cycle of a Locket

The locket was old. Hand-crafted in a time long since passed, by a jeweler of exceptional skill, for a young man's maiden fair, in the shape of a heart. It was silver, with golden inlay for the lovely designs that were placed upon it at the time of its creation. Agatha Henderson had loved the gift so much that she had practically given her own heart to Jack Christian that very day in 1896. A year later they were married, and their family grew quickly. All because of that little silver locket.

Over time, the family had kept the locket as an heirloom - often going to the firstborn son when he turned eighteen, so that he could gift it to his fiancé when the time came. Such had been the case in 1915 when it had been gifted to Donovan, and a year later he married Suzanne Walsh before going off to Europe in 1917. Again it had been true in 1936, when it was given to Bastian, and two years later he had married Helena Aurelius. Then in 1941 he'd run off and joined the Flying Tigers.

Again and again, that little heart-shaped locket was passed from one generation to the next, gifted from lover to lover, and the cycle repeated. But there was one part of its inevitable journey that few in the family thought about. The locket was seemingly passed or gifted right before times of war or national danger. Even all the way back to Jack gifting it to Agatha - the Spanish-American War had happened within two years. World War One, World War Two, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and every conflict since had seen a similar pattern.

The same had been true just before the most recent war. The one that turned off the lights for most of the world. And now, for years, the locket had sat undisturbed while the automated home had gone about its daily routine. It had been vacuum-sealed in a case, after having been polished, and for years it sat in that same place in the master bedroom. That was... until the fire started anyway. The house, with no outside help, had gone into a tizzy trying to defend itself from the flames, but to no avail. All of its futuristic appliances and life-sustaining gizmos, all the various methods it had to try and suppress the flames, they all came to naught in short order.

The house was consumed with flames, the display case knocked over by falling debris, the glass shattered and the old heirloom hung from charred timbers through the gouged open floor, amid a raging inferno. Ash and soot collected on the brilliant old locket, covering the silver surface and most of the gold inlay, leaving the heart and a good portion of its chain blackened. But, even as the automated home around it died in the blaze, the locket never fell from its perch.

By the next morning, the fire was out, the machines that still had power were trying their best to function, but it mattered little. Short circuits and damaged computing systems left it with little semblance of its former urban efficiency, and there was no way that it could possibly clean itself. Eventually, the power systems ran down. The house was well and truly dead. A ruin among ruins, no longer the living ghost it had been so long. But the locket... the locket yet hung, and not all of it was blackened.

The upper portion of the chain, not so well exposed to the smoke, and ash, and flames... it retained the polished, glimmering look. Enough so that when a crow flew over not but a few days later, the shiny chain caught its eye, and it swooped down, landing next to it. Its head cocked side to side and it hopped closer before pecking at the object. A couple of times it hit charred wood, before its beak made a faint little 'clink' noise upon hitting the chain, and making the entire item wobble slightly.

The bird had to fight for a few moments, first to get the chain in its beak and then to get the locket off from where it hung, but soon enough it took to the air once more with its prize. Yet, it wasn't long before the locket seemed to work its magic, even upon the animal kingdom, and another crow came along and tried to steal the locket from its new owner. The two birds scrapped in the air for a few short moments before the locket fell to the ground. The birds hardly noticed. By the time the locket fell, the fight had become about who would win their little war - not about why it started. Just like so many other conflicts.

However, the locket was not destined to simply lay in the dirt. When it fell, it caught the eye of a young man. A young man that had been away at college when the bombs fell... when his family had become little more than shadows on the wall of their home. He had been standing there, looking down the way at what was left of the home, when the birds began to fight above him and the locket dropped from the sky. He blinked as he saw the blackened thing and the shiny bit of chain - but when he picked it up, and he used his thumb to brush away the ash and soot from the heart, he recognized what he found.

"What's that you've got there, Jack?" He heard the all-too-familiar feminine voice call from behind him. He stood a little straighter, and brought the locket and its chain into one hand, tucking it into his pocket as he turned to face her.

"Oh, nothing, Agatha." He replied as he looked to the girl he loved. It was nothing yet. Not until it was properly cleaned and polished.