"Frank!  Come on down here a minute!  You've got to see the piece of rock I picked up at that estate sale!  Geez, he had more crap in his house and garage.....and more laying around his weedy old garden."  Jesse grunted as he lifted the cardboard box onto the kitchen table.  A knife and fork skittered across the table and onto the floor.  "Frank?" 

"I'm coming!  Hold your pants on!"  Boots thudded on the stairsteps as Frank hustled down to see what all the commotion was about.  "So what's the big yahoo about, Jesse?" as he flipped his mop of black hair out of his face. 

"Remember, Old Man Klemp?  He always had arrowheads, and stone axes, and lots of old Indian stuff?" 

"Yeah, he used to go out in the hills and look for stuff like that!  Real weird guy.  Spooky, too, like he didn't want anyone followin' him." 

"Well, his widow had a big sale and cleared it out.  Got rid of everything!  For two bucks I got this rock with a spiral chipped into it.  Look!  Ain't it cool!  I mean, just like in the pictures of Mom and Dad's honeymoon in Albuquerque--only bigger!" 

"Cool your jets, Jesse!  Cripes, it's just a big rock with a spiral banged into it.  Any damfool could make one just like it.  And this one is cracked in two.  Besides, what's it good for.  It won't do the wash or cook your meals!  Can't drive it to work or to the ballpark! You just bought yourself a big doorstop for two bucks!" 

"Maybe somebody at the museum would know more about it!  Maybe it's worth somethin'." 

"Yeah, take it over to the museum, or whatever.  But get it off the table before Mom comes home!  Anyway,  I gotta get more zzzzs before I go ta work.  I'm toast!" 

The cardboard box and the cracked spiral laid on the laboratory table of Dr. Jonas MacGill for three weeks.  When he returned from his field study he had many specimens to clean, categorize, and study. The cardboard box was placed unmarked on a shelf in the archives. 

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