The Weird Vase From The Estate Sale

My Aunt Lily had a passion for flea markets, yard sales, and especially estate sales, but let me tell you, one time she brought something home she didn't expect! She bought a cardboard box from an estate auction full of odds and ends and she found a strange-looking vase in it.

It was ugly, maybe a foot tall and it wasn't painted exactly, it kind of appeared to be stained a brownish color like homemade dye. It has two small handles on each side and is very unfinished, its texture is rough and it still has marks from a pottery wheel on the bottom so it's obviously homemade.

So she placed her find in a glass curio cabinet along with her collection of other vases, but when my uncle sat at his computer desk, his back was facing squarely towards the cabinet. He got to where he hated that vase because he swore he could feel it looking at him and he stayed covered in goosebumps while doing his online work. He finally put his foot down and the vase traveled to my Aunt Shae's house up the road.

Well, it didn't live there much longer because her son, a toddler at the time, was terrified of it but was too young to explain exactly why. Next it was sent to my parents' house until my dad threatened to smash it because his beloved yorkie howled when the vase was brought near him.

So I was chosen as the next owner of that monstrosity of a vase. I put it in the living room foyer beside the front door on one of those triangular shelves that are made to fit into corners. Well, now my dog is being terrorized. He never goes to the front door to ask to go out anymore, he chooses another door no matter how bad he has to go. I was watching him once while he was tossing one of his toys up in the air and it landed dangerously close to the monster in the corner, lol. I told him to go get it and he crept slowly sideways towards it, never taking his eyes off that vase, then snatched his toy and darted away with his tail between his legs.

This was enough to get my aunt interested in finding out as much as possible about where it came from and so on. Turns out, this vase was an urn for human ashes! Now that we knew that and took a closer look, down inside the neck of it are distinct marks from where a cork had been in place. Of course it's empty now and we have no idea who it was and where those ashes are.

Fast forward a few years later and I still own the vase, it sits in the same spot I first placed it in. No one likes it and my dog is still wary of it but I refuse to get rid of it because my aunt that found it so fascinating passed away not long after from breast cancer. I can't bring myself to get rid of something she gave me, and besides, it's never bothered me a bit so it continues to reside its corner.