Mystery on my Doorstep

I'm not quite sure why I put the sparkly silver and blue balls on my front steps. Maybe I thought they looked whimsical. Maybe I thought they distracted the eye from the mossy carpeting some crazed person put on the outdoor steps (in the soggy Northwest? Puh-leez). And they reflected the sun on the rare occasions it showed up.

My daughter bequeathed the orbs to me when she moved to Italy. Apparently, they came with her Whidbey Island apartment when she moved in, bequeathed by a previous tenant. We thought they were sort of mysterious (who made them? what did they use them for?) I was pleased with myself for finding such a jaunty use for them. I knew they were vulnerable in my high-density neighborhood, where kids run and laugh and play on the sidewalks after school. I wondered if the sparkly balls would disappear one day.

I felt sad when I arrived home after dark last night and found the sparkly blue ball missing from the lower step. Despite my determination to consider them disposable, I was fond of them. I hoped someone was enjoying it--or at least, enjoying the mystery of contemplating what it could possibly be used for.

When I took Scruffdog out this morning, the early light struck a pile of sparkly blue bits at the bottom of the stairs. Not enough to have been the whole ball, just a few shards trapped in a depression in the concrete. More mystery! What happened? Did someone break it on purpose? Did someone break it accidentally and try to sweep up, but missed these bits? Why can't I use this evidence to figure out what happened, like Monk, the TV detective?

The asymmetry of just one ball on two steps bothers me (I may be more like Monk than I thought.) What to put there? Something to deter future miscreants, like a little skull or a potted cactus? (Lacks the jaunty factor.) Ah, well. One of my new activities, as an accidentally semi-retired/unemployed person, is visiting thrift stores.

It seems that some people leave items for subsequent tenants when they move, and others haul them off to charity. I'm not opposed to replacing a serendipitously bequeathed item with one I have to find myself-- I'll just look around until something cries out to become my new, jaunty, disposable porch decoration.