The Bone Reader

“Child's Femur Found in Memorial Park.” He read the headline and threw the paper down onto the table knocking his steaming cup of coffee into his crotch.  
 
“Shit. Shit. Shit!” Spencer Grier jumped up and danced around flapping his robe like a giant angry butterfly. “Who the hell makes coffee this damn hot?” As the coffee on his robe and legs cooled, he grunted and shook his head. He lived alone. Grabbing the front section of the paper, he waddled to the bathroom, his favorite spot for reading and deep thinking. 
 
He quickly scanned the article and then read the closing paragraph. “The forensic anthropologist from the State Bureau of Investigation confirmed that the bone was the right femur of a three or four year old child. From the weathering of the bone, she felt it had lain in the woods, exposed to the elements for ten or more years, and during that time, it had been gnawed on by wild animals more than once. The missing-persons coordinator for the county confirmed to this reporter that they do not have any current unresolved reports of a missing three-four year old child. There were no unsolved missing child reports as far back as twenty years when the county began to keep county-wide, consolidated records. Additional information on page D13.” 
 
He looked up into the bathroom mirror and chastised himself. “You are going to have to get off your ass and do something about your irrational reaction to human bones! You can't continue to avoid them for the rest of your life. One day you will need to help the police.” His image glared back at him and said, “But not today!” 
 
He flipped the paper to page D13, exposing a full color photo of the child's femur. “Oh God, not a photo!” was all he got out before his world closed in and became dark. Skeletons came from everywhere, pushing him, falling on him, surrounding him and he moaned in terror as he did every time this vision took hold of him. He threw the paper from him in disgust and as the loose sheets of paper fluttered through the air and settled to the floor, the nightmare vision faded. "Why this same damn vision every time I go near a human bone? Even just a grainy photo in a paper."  
 
After a quick shower, he drove to the university and surreptitiously slipped into his office, hoping to avoid any conversations about his 'gift', as it was often described. Sensing the location of associated bones no matter how far they were scattered after simply touching one of the set, had allowed him to find more complete skeletons of extinct species that anyone in the world. The closest he had ever come to explaining it was to compare it to dowsing. He just felt a pull in the direction of any associated bones to the one he was holding. Sure, it was a good skill in the field and had helped him become one of the most successful fossil hunters of all time. It had helped him achieve his position at the university, not to devalue the untold hours of study and serious academic effort that had also been required. He glanced at the plaque on his wall alongside his degrees, a photo of him and his friends as a high school student and president of the fossil hunter's club. He grinned at the memory of that much simpler time. “To Spencer Grier, The Bone Reader.”