Catalyst

Jaxon McCanlies

I found this trophy in my spare bedroom closet, it was up high on a shelf encircled by old windchimes and shoeboxes.  It was a 1st place hunting rifle trophy, issued for the 11th of July, 1965, and the trophy really struck me, as I stood there looking up at it, about how little information of it I was likely to gather.  I had no father around to tell me of its history, or about its whereabouts for the last 50 years or who it was issued to.  If it was ever displayed proudly atop an oak wood desk with a sleek brown finish, if it was adored, polished regularly, regarded as this symbol of accomplishment and dedication and pride.  My mom, in all likelihood, would not know of its exact origins, and the probability of remembering the faded old relic and describing it accurately enough to my grandmother or uncle was slim to none.  I could assume, with some degree of certainty, that it belonged to my grandfather or great-grandfather, both of whom were accustomed to rifles and firearms and hunting and gunpowder, but I could never be sure.  Even if deep down I feel like I’m probably correct in my assumptions, I could never be positive, and truth be told reader, it’s rather inconsequential.  It doesn't really matter why it is there, it only matters that it is.  That etched atop its small silver placard it reads “PBR & PC,” of which I’ve no clue what those letters, in that order, in that context, could entail.  But I can notice how its base is constructed of something comparable to marble, if it is not itself, marble.  How on either side of its monolith sits a golden eagle perched atop a golden orb, their wings permanently fixed in the upright position, as if attempting to scare off a black bear, and how our right, its left, eagle is slightly loose and will spin in place upon being touched.  How the trophy’s spire is a 12-sided cylinder of cold, dense metal, the same tealish green as the Statue of Liberty, and is smooth as I rub my thumbnail against its ridges.  How the seal atop the tower depicts two gold rifles among circular foliage, which to me resembles a coat of arms, all of which is worn from dirt and age, bespeckled with dark gray freckles up an uneven surface that for whatever reason, reminds me of an anthill.  The welding on the ting is near perfect, and its symmetry is only thrown off by a single translucent spider web betwixt its leftmost rifle and its right sided, seemingly feathered branch, as the firearms criss-cross in an X position.  When dragging a finger along its base, a small, white trail of dust will envelope your finger tip, crawling deep within the depth of your prints, likely to remain there until the next time you thoroughly wash your hands.  In all reality, if I wanted to, I could snap a picture of the near 60 year old relic and google the acronym while showing the photograph to my relatives, but I feel that may defeat the point.  To be honest, I’m unsure I care who the award was given to, and the events that led to it being placed probably hap-hazardly in the spare bedroom’s closet.  I’m unsure I care about the calloused hands it passed through, the men of whom I surely share a last name with that received the sculpture at one point or another, an award granted when my father was not yet even a single year of age.  I find myself more so fascinated with the hands that crafted it, that sweat on the metal as it was being shaped, that with a now rusty nut and bolt affixed the trophy to its base, and who wrote, in what looks to me almost like a stamp, a word that starts with “MA,” but the rest of it I cannot make out.  I’m far more interested in what will become of it once my intrigue of the item is exhausted, and when I certainly place it back atop the shelf in which I found it.  Even seeing it now, sat on my desk next to all of my regular, everyday things, it is almost intimidating.  How realistically, the thing will either get thrown out with the rest of the miscellany of perceived junk throughout the house’s lonely corridors, or it will come across a table one day, when my Mother is gone, and when my brothers and I go through her things.  But for now I will keep it where it slept, and it shall remain there as I sit and wonder how old these hands will be when I, if ever, feel its cold and dusty exterior once again.

January 9, 2025