It Came From the Living Room

The day it happened, I'd slept in and gotten to work late. I'd been yelled at by the manager, yelled at by customers, and I'd forgotten to pack my lunch. On my way home, I'd been so tired I'd almost gotten into an accident. It would have been my fault, but the other guy had swerved out of my way, flipped me the bird, and sped away. By the time I got home, I was dead on arrival. Just done with the day, ready to pop a few too many melatonins and check out for the evening.

Naturally, I wouldn't be able to do that. When I stepped into my living room, I found a great big wooden box just sitting there in the middle of the room. The thing was old and dirty and there were soft woodchips scattered all around it on the carpet.

“Awesome. Very cool,” came a fuzzy thought, “I'll deal with that tomorrow.”

I trudged across to the kitchen and grabbed an energy drink from the fridge. I took one sip. Two sips. Chugged half the can. I stood there blinking til the burning from the carbonation faded from my sinuses.

That's when it hit me.

I stormed back into the living room and glared at the box.

“What the hell is this?” I asked the empty house.

I hadn't put the thing there. I'd never seen it before in my life.

I ran over to the door and looked around outside, as though whoever left the box in my house would still be around. There was nobody. I scanned the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom, and even spared a glance at the crawlspace. Nothing. I came back to the box.

It was maybe four feet long, with a rounded lid that came up to about my waist. The old wood was reinforced with rusted bands of iron, and on the front of it a crumbling padlock was hanging open from a latch.

“Hang on, this isn't a…”

I took off the padlock and pushed on the lid. The hinges gave some resistance and let out an awful grinding noise, but when I'd pushed it all the way back I looked down to see the box was full of shiny yellow disks. I picked up one of the disks. On one side of the disk was the face of some guy with a mean-looking face. On the other side was some kind of tower. Around the border of both sides was something that looked like writing, but I didn't recognize any of the letters. I dropped the disk back into the box and it landed with a metallic clinking sound.

“Why is there a freakin' treasure chest in my living room?”

I stood up, blinked, and frowned. Then I got out my phone and called my sister. I heard the phone ring once, twice, three times. Then I heard someone pick up, and a sound that might have been a greeting or a grunt.

“Hey Liz, you're a jeweler, right?”

“Yeah? What do you want?”

“Can you come over?”

“Now?”

“If you can.”

“Al, I'm kind of tired right now. Is it important?”

“Probably.”

“Yes or no.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You think it's important, or it is important?”

“Yes, it's important. Please, Liz.”

“All right, fine. I'll be right over.”

She hung up.

While I waited for her, I vacuumed up the dirt and woodchips from around the chest. I opened it and closed it several times before deciding to just leave it open. In the meanwhile, I didn't hear Liz pull up to the house, and didn't know she'd arrived until she burst through the front door without knocking.

“All right, what is it?”

She saw the treasure chest.

“Why is there a freakin' treasure chest in your living room?”

“I don't know. Are these coins real gold?”

Liz approached the chest, squatted down in front of it, and picked up a coin. She stared, squinted, and frowned at it.

“Oh yeah. That's real gold.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do I sound unsure?”

“I dunno. Aren't there tests or something for this?”

“I mean, I can do a test if you really want, but I'm pretty sure this is gold.”

“All right, all right.”

“Do you want me to do a test?”

“No, no, that's fine. I'm just a little weirded out right now.”

“Why?”

“There's a treasure chest in my living room.”

“Yeah. How'd it get here?”

“I dunno. It was just there.”

“Oh. I guess you're rich now, then.”

“Liz, this isn't my treasure chest. I can't just keep it.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not?”

“I mean, you found it in your house. If it's not yours, whose is it?”

“Well, someone must have left it here.”

“You think someone was just waltzing through your living room with a treasure chest and forgot it here?”

“It had to get here somehow. Besides, there's tax laws.”

“What do tax laws have to do with this?”

“I can't just suddenly have a treasure chest full of gold and not be able to tell the IRS where it came from.”

“I don't think it has to get taxed unless you try to sell it.”

“If I can't sell it then I’m not rich.”

“There's tax people you can work with. I'm sure one of them would know how to file this.”

“No. No. That's too much hassle. I'm calling the police.”

“What are you gonna do? Tell them someone broke into your house and left a treasure chest?”

“I'm gonna call the non-emergency number and get this thing checked into their lost and found. You know, like you'd do if you found a wallet.”

“If I found a wallet I'd just bring it to the address on the driver's license.”

“Yeah, well… look, I can't just keep a treasure chest just because it showed up in my living room.”

“If you say so.”

Liz stared at me like I was an idiot as I pulled out my phone to look up the non-emergency number for the local police department. I dialed the number and got to one of those robot phone menus that tells you to press such and such a button to talk to so and so about five times before it finally calls a real human being. Eventually, I heard a word that might have been “hello” or “yellow.”

“Hey, I just wanted to report that I found a lost valuable.”

“A lost valuable?”

“Yeah.”

“Like a wallet?”

“No.”

“Jewelry?”

“Not exactly.”

“Please describe the item, sir.”

“It's a treasure chest.”

“A treasure chest?”

“Yeah. It's all full of gold coins.”

“I see. And where'd you say you found it?”

“Uh, in my living room.”

“What?”

“In my living room.”

“You found a freakin' treasure chest in your living room?”

“Yeah. I dunno how it got here.”

“Buddy, is this a prank call? This isn't the emergency line, but you still can't just prank call the cops.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. I just got home from work and there was a treasure chest. I don't know why it's here, I just wanna deal with it and be done with it.”

“All right, all right, fine. Do you think you can get it down to the station? Or does it look too heavy?”

I looked over at the treasure chest. Liz was still squatting by it, looking at me with a dull expression.

“I'm gonna be honest, it looks pretty heavy.”

“All right, that's fine. Just gimme your name, number, address.”

“Name, Al King.”

“Al? Is that your full first name, or is that short for something? Alan?”

“Uh, Alfred.”

A snicker came over the line.

“You a butler, Alfred?”

A sound that might have been a grunt or a sigh dragged its way out of my throat.

“No.”

“All right, sorry. Number and address, please.”

I gave them.

“Okay, Al. I'll file this away. If we get in any reports of a missing treasure chest, we'll call you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And I'm gonna be honest here, if you don't hear back from us in like a week, you can probably just keep it.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

“No problem. You have a good evening, now.”

I hung up. Liz flipped one of the coins. It landed on heads.

“What'd they tell you?”

“If they don't call back in a week, I can keep it.”

“Well look at that. So you can just keep it.”

“Only if the owner doesn't claim it.”

“You think someone's gonna call the cops about a missing treasure chest?”

“I assume so. Unless it's, like, hidden mafia gold.”

“Hidden mafia gold.”

“I dunno. Maybe they were in the area and just needed a place to stash this thing real quick.”

Liz put on a long-suffering expression and stood up.

“Al? Can you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Can you just accept that something nice happened?”

“Nice? How is anything about this nice?”

Liz gestured at the chest.

“There's a freakin' treasure chest in your living room!”

No one ever called to claim the chest.