by Tom Griffen
Gramps insists he planted my obsidian arrowhead. But mine isn’t one of the flawless reproductions he hid like Easter eggs around his property at the base of Cobb Mountain, an ancient volcano. I’m sure the one I found is real. Its shape, textbook. My archaeology class taught me this much at least.
My arrow point is broken, an immediate differentiator. Plus I dug it up. It wasn’t just sitting there, clean and shiny, atop other pieces of the razor-sharp volcanic glass that cut our barefoot heels as kids. Mine has dirt cemented in its cracks.
I’m pretty sure Gramps wasn’t even there when I unearthed it. I had escaped outside because Gramps, in mid-July, was testing out a new heater for his double-wide. While I watched jays dig for acorns in forest scree, he listened to Judge Judy reruns at full volume. I wandered his yard filled with machines rusting in tall grass, their bellies full of stale gas. I found my arrowhead beneath a mower that Gramps’ muscles could no longer move.
Surely Gramps is confusing mine with the one my brother Mike found. Mike credits luck for drawing him to his biface crystal, perfectly fractured, sitting in the middle of the gravel driveway. He believes it’s real. Had it framed even. I’ve repeatedly assured him it’s a replica but he tells me he doesn’t care. Says it reminds him of the good times we had at Gramps’ place in the mountains.
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