I used to have a missile

It all started this Monday.
I was cleaning the garage in the house my wife and I had bought some months ago, in preparation for the construction workers to come. Nothing exciting. Just dishes (mostly broken), dust, and forgotten tools. Until I glimpsed something: tucked between bags and boxes there was a metallic object.
It looked... unusual. I picked it up.
It was a missile.

No joke. A literal missile.
Sleek, solid, all made of aluminum, about 30 cm long and 5 cm in diameter.
It felt weirdly light in my hands, which made me assume it was empty and probably harmless.
But damn! What a piece of engineering.
I’m not into military stuff, but I can appreciate good manufacturing when I see it, and this thing was clean.
Aerodynamic.
Glorious.

For a brief, shining moment, I was a missile owner.
And I was proud.
This was my missile now. My shiny new conversation piece.

I was already dreaming about making a stand to display it, but in the afternoon, after bragging about it to my colleagues and hearing their concern, I asked myself: “Wait, Ivan. Did you really pick up a missile? A device designed to explode. But… it hasn’t exploded. Why not?”
It was at this moment I knew.
This wasn’t just a cool relic, this was a potential weapon. I did some internet research, and I found out it was a very illegal one. In Italy, possessing military artillery, even old and inert-looking ones, is a big deal. Like, go-to-jail big.
I figured the headlines:

Local man arrested for smuggling weapons.
Wife in tears claims: "he just liked the shape."

I couldn’t bear it.

So I did what a responsible adult does when they find an unexploded device in their garage: I threw it at the neighb I went to the police station.
The officer looked at the video I had made (because I thought showing up at the police station with a missile in my backpack wasn't very clever). There was a brief moment of confused silence, followed by sentences like "This has never happened to me before". Then a couple of officers decided to follow me to the house and, after an inspection, confiscate the device.
I didn't find the courage to ask if I could keep it after they checked if it was safe.

So now I’m once again a non-missile-owner. Like I was before.
But it’s different now, because I was a missile owner (for about half an hour). And having something, even briefly, then losing it... hits harder than never having it at all.

The garage is still the same.
The boxes to get rid of are still there.
But there's a missile-shaped space that wasn't there before.

And I miss it.
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