It sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study.

He died two weeks ago. My father was found right here in this very room, slumped over in his chair, onto his desk. I was the one that found him and immediately called 9-1-1, but even as I tried to revive him by shaking his rag-doll form in a panic with the operator on the line, I knew he was well off and dead.

It sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study. A thick leather-bound text sits upon a podium before the glass box, cataloging the exceptional item's past.

We buried my father; my mother was distraught, weeping uncontrollably so that she had to be removed from the congregation during his wake. I imagined she would throw herself onto the casket as they lowered the old man into the ground, but she reserved herself to sit in the hot car alone. I threw a bit of dirt into the hole, listening to it strike the hollow surface of the black coffin. I could hear the whispers of others though. Speculation over my mother's hysteria had not been lost on me, so it came as no surprise to me that our closest friends and family thought she'd spilled her marbles.

It sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study. Some paranormal enthusiasts have said the ornate making of the thing was smelted from a jinn's lamp; some historians say it was mixed in the gold that hung from the neck of Rasputin in the original form of a religious cross. No one knows its true origin.

I didn't like finding my father like that one bit. He'd been having his evening tea as he wrote in one of his innumerable journals. My mother had said so. My father had spilled his cup across the desk, leaving a brown stain all across his many white papers. His eyes bulged from his head. His neck was purple. Initial speculation was some kind of strangulation or asphyxiation. Due to the marks, the detectives marking off the room in yellow tape pondered over the strange death. They said he was most likely choked by a pair of strong hands given the bruising around his neck. No sign of a real struggle though. Beyond the red scratch marks as he attempted to free his airways with his fingernails. So, that theory is no good. Poison seemed a better lead.

It sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study. The first known picture of it is old and faded within white borders. The gold lamp rests on a small table in the foyer of an art-deco themed home of a boisterous broker. He's smiling with his young newborn son and young wife. The thing stands out against the decor of the rest of the room in the photo. His name was Howard Pullman. He dismembered his family with a cleaver and a meat tenderizer one week after they'd posed for the picture.

My father adored artifacts, items of old, strange happenings and stories. It was the newest addition to his collection of books and miscellaneous possessions. My parents loved the thing. It cost quite a pretty penny, but they'd told me over the phone that it was well worth it. When they sent me a photo of the thing, it looked like a dusty busted old lamp to me.

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It sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study. The earliest account of the thing's existence is from an old bit of folklore involving an electrician's apprentice that had grown smitten with the daughter of a baker. The electrician's apprentice bought a beautiful, ornate, shapely, stunning lamp at auction cheaply, sure that he could fix its wiring issues rather easily. After returning home, the apprentice sanded off its paint only to find the thing was made of pure gold through and through. Overjoyed, he thought he could present it to the baker as a gift and earn his favor and perhaps court the baker's daughter. The baker's shop that doubled as the family's home went up in flames, killing everyone. Blaming himself for his love's death, the apprentice hanged himself.

The wiring in the lamp when it had come into my father's possession was kaput. After some tinkering, my father proudly showed it off to me, clicking the little switch at the thing's neck. The light came on. He was so pleased with himself. I didn't understand my father's obsession with the stupid old lamp, but he would admire the thing constantly. After taking some time to read through the journals laid out over his desk, I found he'd taken to writing poetry in the name of the lamp. It's disturbing to see his handwriting speak in these ways.

A fireman retrieved the lamp from the rubble and brought it home without anyone else in his crew noticing. The fireman's wife left him, and he was found with a bullet through the chest, his body rotting in a dumpster. The lamp disappeared for some time. It reappeared in Howard Pullman's family photo.

It sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study. I received a call from the detective working my father's case. The toxicology report had returned, and the detective wanted to inform me that the case was quickly becoming a bonified murder investigation.

Howard Pullman had commented in passing with one of his colleagues that he felt like he was losing his mind. Mr. Pullman said he was more irritable and shorter tempered. He speculated that he was most likely over stressed from work. Most workaholics don't blow off steam by murdering their entire immediate family. The lamp passed through a series of other unhappy events until a notable point in the era of bell bottoms and winged hair. A pilot came into the lamp's possession and she apparently expressed hallucinations and irrational anger to her therapist. Her boyfriend was found with a slit throat in their shared apartment after she flew a Pan Am 747 into the side of a mountain. Survivors of the fiery crash attested that the pilot had been screaming hysterically over the intercom. When questioned about the sorts of things she was saying, one issue was made abundantly clear: she was fixated on a solid gold lamp.

It sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study. The detective told me they'd also tested the tea he'd been drinking. The same poison was found both in his body and spilled across his desk. Every evening, my mother would bring my father his tea. She's humming in the kitchen now. I can hear the tinkle of a metal spoon stirring the contents of a ceramic cup. She called to me and asked if I want some tea.

I am frozen in fear as it sits in a glass box in the center of my father's study. The unplugged lamp's light flickers alive impossibly.