The Box (Words: 1330 or, if you prefer, 1400 with the earlier
meta-remark)
It was just a box.
It was a medium sized box, decent if unremarkable. It was built to hold nails. I dont really know what kind of cardboard it was, but it felt like special cardboard designed for such an important, if unexciting, task.
The fucks so important about a nail box? my girlfriend
well, my ex-girlfriend at the time, asked.
I didnt really have an answer for her, to be honest: I had just always kept the box lying around. I dont think I ever owned a thousand nails, so something tells me that I probably received the box from someone else. It was probably a Christmas gift of some sort, but my interest in the box didnt stretch to the point where I was going to take a jaunt into my memory to cross-reference its size with gifts received.
The first thing the box held was more boxes.
You have to maximize your storage, this place is unbalanced, was the exact advice that my mother Claire (oh how I wish she was my ex-mother) gave me when I moved into my first apartment. My idea of maximizing storage was putting boxes inside of other boxes; her idea was getting rid of my frivolous corporate possessions.
When I moved across the country, there was something about the box that made me consider very carefully what I would place inside of it. After packing the rest of my boxes, I found that what I left until last was not what I expected: family photos, or what few I had around the apartment.
I know its fucking corny, my sister Kate had told me when she gave me the photo of her and Michael with their dog Vincent sitting in between them, but itll make Mom happy, plus now my kid brother can have a picture of perfection to aspire to. She hit me in the shoulder after she said it, smiling. I dont remember if I smiled back then, but I do remember that I carefully placed the frame into the box after wrapping it in a bedsheet.
I took special care of the photo of my Aunt Rose. It was only her face, beaming out from under one of those fancy hats women used to wear to church when both religion and fancy hats were all the rage, but that Rose kept wearing anyways.
I wear my hat because its comfortable, its practical, and because it makes me look mighty fine, was Roses answer when I asked her about her hat when I was only seven years old. Ten years later, on my eighteenth birthday, she sent me the photograph it was my first gift from her in years, and it would be her last. When she passed away, a copy of the photo sat by her cremated remains, and the hat (her favourite) sat beside it.
When I finished placing all of the photos into the box, packing them with any soft items I could find, I placed it into the back of the U-Haul truck that my friend Sawyer had offered to drive across country for me.
Hey Jack, trust me, theres nothing to worry about, he said after I raised some skepticism about the idea.Im a really good driver, honestly. Seriously, dude, Im totally your guy.
Sawyer was, in fact, my guy; my guy who backed the U-Haul into a ditch outside a convenience store ten miles down the road, spilling a selection of boxes out of the back. This box was amongst them, and when the box arrived at my new apartment I opened it tentatively.
Im sure it would seem like this would be the point where some of the photos are missing, or the glass has shattered my precious memories, but it is quite the opposite: everything was completely intact. Sure, I had packed them carefully, but the box certainly had held up its end of the bargain. I took out the photos, and then placed the box on top of my dresser.
Whats that box doing on top of your dresser? my neighbour Juliet asked me when I was giving her the grand tour of what Id done with the place.
I had a box like that once, she continued. It was brown, like that one, but more rounded
do you know what I mean by rounded? Anyways, it used to hold my hair products, but then it wasnt big enough, so then it held my face products instead, since theyre smaller.
I of course, smiled and nodded, but knew in my heart of hearts that she didnt have a box quite like this one. Juliet just saw a box, but I saw potential: she hadnt asked, but the box was empty. Other guests would often ask about the box, and most would usually ask what was inside; it wasnt until my co-worker John stopped by for dinner, though, that someone asked the question I was asking myself.
What do you want the box to be? he said, or something close to it chances are Ive adapted his language to make him sound as profound as possible. It felt silly, but there was something about the box that made me want its purpose to be something bigger than me, bigger than John, bigger than everything.
So I turned to the internet, hoping that people Ive never met before could take on my cause and offer me some guidance.
Oh, jack in the box, said one poster, followed by one of those little smiley things that sat laughing at me. I spent a good hour pondering why he'd put one of those infernal contraptions into the box until I realized it was all an elaborate pun.
I received a few other suggestions, from friends and family or from random internet folks, but they all came with these caveats: an opening salvo of laughter, a skeptical gaze, those little electronic smiley faces or, worse yet, a real human being attempting to emulate them.
But the suggestion that stuck with me most, surprisingly, was my mother. I hadnt intended on telling her about this whole situation, but it slipped out and she offered a piece of advice I hadnt expected to take so seriously.
Recycle it, Jack, she said, so that it can become something new, that it can enter into our eco-system in new and different ways.
That night I brought the box out to the coffee table and just stared at it. About five minutes later, I realized how silly this must look, but I went to bed feeling like I had made some sort of important life decision. As I was taking out the trash the next morning, I grabbed the box from the table and carried it down the stairs into the main lobby where the recyclables were kept.
Hey, kid, yer throwin that box away? my landlord Ben said as he was fixing a broken light on the wall.
No, I think Im going to recycle it, I said, because its the right thing to do. Ive put a lot of thought into it, and I feel like this box deserves to be put to good use and made into something new for future generations. I proudly placed the box on top of the pile, and stood with a proud grin on my face.
He stared at me, and then at the box, and then at me again.
Some jerkoff took my lost an found box, he said as he walked over, plucked the box from the pile, and then walked over to the main office, shutting the door behind him.
I watched as he re-emerged a moment later, Lost and Found scrawled on the box with a black marker. He placed the box by the door, and hastily tossed a pair of discarded underpants into the box before walking back over to his light.
With that pair of underpants, the box lost its appeal and found its purpose.
It's such a great sight, seeing others share their love of writing. It really is heartwarming. 