The Staircase Shaped Door

Bert constantly rotated his view between the road and the backpack. Until He just couldn't take it anymore. He had one hand on the wheel and the other was kneading at the backpack. He desperately tried to find the zipper and get one more look at the relic. The quiet sound of rolling tires on smooth blacktop quickly turned into horrid sounds of rumble strips. Bert panicked, quickly turned his view back to the road and put the truck on the highway again. He applied the brakes and pulled off to the shoulder. Bert grabbed the backpack, placed it in the bed of his truck. He tentatively covered it with a folded up tarp and sped home.

Bert grabbed the plate Alice placed in the refrigerator containing this evening's meal. He placed it in the microwave and pressed the reheat button. Bert greeted Alice and Sarah glued to the TV and walked upstairs. After placing the bag in his den, he hustled down stairs for his food. On his way back through the TV room, he paused at Sarah and Alice saying. "Sorry guys, I brought some work home and I won't be joining you tonight."

"That's ok, you wouldn't like this movie anyway, daddy." Sarah said.

Alice just nodded her head, letting him know she was aware he wasn't joining them and continued to stare at the TV.

"I'll be in my den if you guys need me." Bert said.

Alice waved him off, with the hand not buried in the half eaten bowl full of popcorn. "Okay honey."

"I love you, guys."

"I love you too daddy." Sarah said

Bert sat at his desk, with his plate on his left and opened the backpack in front of him. He took out the mysterious object and pushed the backpack to the floor.

Anxious to get results, Bert typed the word symbols in the search engine. Seeing that the only results he got was: the Chinese, Japanese, Arabic language along with some road sign symbols. He typed in a search for ancient symbols and found nothing resembling the mysterious symbols. Bert changed the search to astrological symbols and came up with some similarities to the symbol on the object. He took a break and started to eat his supper. Nothing came close to what was in-scripted on this purple metal, except for the astrological sign of Pisces he saw with the earlier search.

Bert quickly hooked his camera up to the computer and printed out some pictures. He printed out some blown up pictures of the symbol on the metal at 300 and 500 percent zoom. He ate the rest of his supper while the pictures were printing out and drying. He searched crop circles and nothing resembled this. He hung the pictures up on his wall, continued his search for some kind of resemblance to the metal and eventually fell asleep.

2:30, Alice entered the room to see her husband sleeping at his desk. She nudged him "Bert―hey, honey wake up, you fell asleep―come to bed."

Bert slowly awoke to his wife standing there in her nightgown and said. "Hey, beautiful."

Alice glowed. "Turn off your computer and come to bed." She looked around, noticing the pictures on the wall. "These are some strange pictures. They're nothing like you brought home before."

"I know, exciting―Isn't it?"

"I can see why you fell asleep working. I'll let you off the hook this time." Alice said in a joking manner.

Bert smiled and said. "You are so beautiful, you know that?"

Alice smiled. "Stop, Bert, Yeah―I'm so attractive in my nightgown, slippers and my hair all over the place."

"Yes, you are. You're a piece of art just for me, untouched without makeup or any kind of maintenance.  It's just you and you are gorgeous."

Alice blushed. "You know, I said I forgive you―right?"