I have a magic ring

the One Ring...

So mine is silver, has no inscription (that I can see), doesn’t make me invisible, and isn’t evil (I don’t think), but it is magic.

It’s a simple silver band that I got several years ago on a bit of a whim, but once I put it on my finger, I never took it off. There it sat, on the middle finger of my left hand, slowly gaining teeny scratches and dings from daily wear, developing in character. I became so used to it that I barely registered it. It was just there.

Then one day, back in May, I took the ring off to put on some handcream. I watched in slow motion as the ring slipped off the bedside table, bounced twice, and disappeared between a crack in the floorboards. There one instant, gone the next. Despite swearing, cursing, flashlights, bent hangers, special springy-clippy-grabby tools, and a lot of patience, the ring was stuck. Nestled lovingly in the dusty embrace of the floor joists, visible, but forever out of reach.

It is bizarre, but I felt bereft. This ring was nothing special, it wasn’t a gift. There was no sentimental meaning behind it, but I felt naked without it. So naked that I bought a replacement – when it came, the new ring was very very similar to the old, as you’d expect from the same brand, but it was a shade slimmer than the last. Plus it looked all new. Still, I started wearing it, and it is now starting to acquire the same marks of life of its predecessor.

Up till this morning I would have said I had gotten over the loss of the old ring. I still thought of it, now and then, sitting under the floorboard, waiting for me to move house (I decided to wait till then before I asked the landlord to rip up floorboards), but I had moved on.

Yesterday another favourite ring, one I have worn every day for the past decade since my great aunt died and left it to me, broke. As it can’t be mended till the new year, I rummaged through my jewellery box this morning looking for a suitable temporary replacement.

And there, sitting on the top, was the missing ring. Exactly as shiny and silver and slightly battered as it was the day it slipped out of reach.

I want to stress this – it is the exact ring that went down between the floorboards in May. Not a very similar ring. Not the replacement ring. The same. bloody. ring.

And no, I haven’t forgotten to tell you about how I spent last weekend using a crowbar on my floor.

I genuinely, honestly, seriously, have no bloody idea how this fracking ring got to be in my jewellery box. As far as I am concerned the ring that is now gracing my right ring-finger IS STILL UNDER THE FLOORBOARDS. I have wracked my brain, trying to think if I ever brought a spare. I have gone through receipts, and I never brought a spare, certainly not a spare I then wore long enough to develop marks, then took off and forgot about. And it wasn’t exactly hiding in the depths of the jewellery box – it was sitting right on the top. Smiling at me. Saying “hello there old friend, I’m back. Wear me?”

There’s only one conclusion. I have Borrowers. Or the ring is magic.

Not sure which I’d prefer.

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