"It's a box"

"No, I'm not going to touch it, pick it up, open it, nor do I want it. Can't even look at it." John said, perched on the tip of his worn leather mahogany sofa, pointing at the 1x1x1 brown box, sitting alone in the center of his apartment living room.

"John---calm down, breathe. Just tell me what it is." Cheryl asked.

"It's a box."

"Real funny, if you didn't---how did it get here? Did you bring it from Maine? Did it come in the mail today, from an ex---is some crazy ex-girlfriend stalking you? AHH---is that why you moved?!", Cheryl asked with growing rapid-fire progression.

"No, it's nothing like that. It's---nothing, I must have sat it there unpacking and forgot about it before I left to meet you. It's---just old and it spooked me. Some deja vu thing---could you sit it in the coat closet by the door please?", John asked.

"It's not anthrax or a Unabomber surprise is it?".

She let those words hang in the air before John raised his eyes, beginning to pull himself from the hypnotic trance the box seemed to have cast upon him. She let her laughter spill into the air with enough force that it bulged the moment even more, making it clear she was trying to bottle up the first awkward moment of what had been an amazingly perfect first date. John showed her a cracked grin, uncoiling a bit of the self-imposed tension, prompting Cheryl to bend over, reaching for the box, until she stopped.

"Why don't you open it? How do you know what---you don't...if you haven't opened it? This has moved past "confusing", rapidly approaching "ominous"; why do I have to pick it up? If it's so traumatizing to even look at, why pack it for a 3000 mile move to the Sierras? Why not just throw it away?"

"I did."

"What?"

"I did---you're going to think I'm nuts but I've thrown that box away more times than I can remember."

"Ohh shut up."

John obeyed, remaining silent, breaking eye contact, and letting the weight of the situation impose it's will upon his shoulders and the prospects of their first night together. Cheryl walked over and sat on the opposite end of the couch, never touching the box. It sat there, figuratively swelling as they sat in silence for a minute, an hour? Who can tell when the space has flash morphed into a pressure cooker?

"You're an asshole. This is some juvenile prank, it has to be. and it's not funny so drop it; stop acting weird. If you're joking it's sick cruelty and you think you can take a woman out, be funny, charismatic, good-looking, and available---I think. But who knows?! You're Jekyll and Hyde; ideal gentleman who's then trying to convince me the pandora's box curse from the Hellraiser movies is following him across the country---or are you trying to get me to turn my back to you?" Cheryl trailed off.

John abandoned his glossed over gaze into the alabaster cream shag carpeting, lifting his head to face her in response but pausing, then inhaling with intent to defend himself but freezing; holding his breath and bracing like he was about to be blasted by a bitterly cold blustering wind. "It's not like that. I don't want to bring you into this.", he said, eyes darting back to the carpet.

"Well---if it's not a cruel frat-boy prank I don't want to touch it either."

"I know, I'm sorry. Someone gave it me in Maine after my first season. He told me never to open it or tell anyone about it---I asked him what it was, he just kept repeating it was my karma."

Cheryl hung on his every word fascinated and mouth wateringly thirsty to drink more of the only mysterious thing ever to happen in the whole of her 35 years as a continuous resident of North Fork, California. Her pulse was rising like a gambling addict just banned from Vegas and dropped outside the city limits, she had to know what karma looked like. "Let's open it...", she wasn't sure she said that in the middle of bounding off the couch with hands up and palms out, looking like Nosferatu ready to...not drink his victim's blood, of course not, but sacrifice himself to save lives by diving to cover the box, could be a live grenade in there.

"No don't, please stop, you don't understand."

"Then tell me what all this is."

"Fine, but when shit starts getting weird---I warned you. Way out in the middle of nowhere, I'm talking 30 miles out, in the untouched wilderness, there are random st---, don't laugh...staircases. All different kinds and not like the park service or the military or anyone built them to be "out there". They look like they were in a house or mansion, or museum, and then Star Trek beamed them out there. 100's, 1000's of them and the management just wanted us to ignore them, like they're just another tree but we were all threatened with firing if we went near them, walked up them, or spoke of them. They're just stairs after all right? But that's when the really wicked shit started going down."

"John, you're scaring me---are you listening to yourself? None of what you're saying is real."

"Yes it is Cheryl, what I'm telling you is all re---AAAHHH!" John jumped, startled by his phone's timing.

He breathed deeply and grabbed the phone off the coffee table, hit the button, and hugged it to his ear. He simply listened, making no attempt to speak. Cheryl watched him nod his head a few times and without a "goodbye" mechanically slid the device back upon the glass rim stained wooden coffee table. Under her thin merino wool V-neck periwinkle sweater Cheryl's pulse was now visible to anyone except her, she'd devoted all of her faculties to remain in silence. She knew that wasn't Publisher's Clearing House---she knew the voice on the other end of John's phone wasn't a social call. "That was Mr. Eleven."

"---Who?"

"He gave me the box and he informed me, if I speak another word to you---the box is your karma too."

"What the fuck?! John, what the---are they outside?!? ARE THEY WATCHING US!? John?!" Cheryl was frantic and beginning to hyperventilate.

"Didn't see that one coming. Hey, hey---Cheryl breathe, calm down. He's not going to hurt us. They're trying to get in our heads. He literally means what he says, they still don't get sarcasm at all. Listen to me, you can still leave and never look back."

Cheryl toppled back down to the sofa to collect herself. After her breathing tapered off and regained it's meter, John heard her mumbling, like she was giving herself a pep talk. "John---I've never left North Fork. I'm not a mother---hell, I've never been engaged. I commuted to college, I'm 35 years old and I've been scared my entire life. I'm not going to be the scary neighborhood cat lady reclusive spinster---I'm in."

John looked into Cheryl's electric emerald eyes, held her gaze, and finally took control of the situation. "I did what I wasn't supposed to do, I climbed to the top of a beautiful black cast iron spiral staircase and at the top, having run out of space to walk, I stepped off the top through time and space, like I found a cut or slip in the fabric of reality and slide through it, landing on something and finding myself in a black void-like dimensional "in-between". What I thought were twinkling stars hanging in a night sky all around me were bright hovering orbs of light the size of golf balls. Immediately darting at me, forming a curious mob, zipping around me in circles, stopping randomly to look at me, study me."

The door bell rang. John gasped, jumping to his feet due to the last thing he'd expected past midnight in this sleepy Sierra Nevada National Park hamlet. Cheryl froze catatonically staring into nothingness, like a vintage full-sized steel Maglite getting it's lantern head twisted, widening the beam's focus from pinpoint to flood light; she was a blind deer in headlights. And that was simply the effects from the initial inward reverberating shock wave drag from the nuclear detonation that just rang the doorbell. Apocalyptic doom stood on the other side of that door and she didn't even her the story she traded her life for. "Are you going to answer the door?"

"Yes." John said, smearing both sweaty palms down the outsides of his pants.

He shot himself at the door like a bottle rocket, giving himself no time to think, he gripped, twisted, and flung the solid wood door open finding nothing. Peeping out the threshold, he scanned the outside topography blankly, still nothing. Turning his attention inside, he found Cheryl tensing every muscle in her body, holding herself so still she'd pass for cryogenically frozen, her eyes closed so tight she was trying to crush them. "There's nobody here." John said.

She slowly cranked open her right eye until her vision was no longer blurry. She scanned the room, regaining her bearings, and letting herself loosen up. Now comfortable in the present moment she finally take stock of herself, quickly realizing this whole experience had been like skydiving and how afterward you feel tranquility through necessity. She had just gotten squeezed for an exhausting amount of time by the jaws of life or death hanging in the balance, and after threats like that evaporate the body shakes up a new blended cocktail of endorphins, adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin; literally the manifestation of cloud 9. And that's when Cheryl thought it was a damn shame she wasn't feeling anything close to that now, her gut wouldn't allow it. Her intuition was screaming for attention now, convincing her she's been inside with the danger the whole time. "What the fuck am I doing here? I don't believe I fell for your bullshit! You are a fucking asshole! Never call me again---I never want to see your face again. Thank Christ I didn't send you nudes. Oh my fuck? What if I would have slept with you...". She screamed, now standing in the front door threshold, inches from John's face before making her sassy quarter spin to walk off into the sunset---or to her Prius.

John stood appalled but he knew and what could he do? He shuffled to the sofa in a trance, wallowing in the multi-passenger train wreck of his life. He let his weight take over, plopping down when "knock, knock, knock" came from the man standing in the still open front door threshold. "Hello Mr. Eleven." John said.

Standing stoically silence at 5 feet tall in a flat black suit and tie; wearing black shoes so noticeably small and high polished their day job could be signaling toy ships trying to navigate bathtub bubbles. Roosting under his black fedora was hair so ill-fitting, it either came from a costume shop or he killed it on the highway. His cheekbones and brow so over-pronounced they appeared swollen, while his pale white skin could double as a 10 lumen nightlight. Mr. Eleven turned his head, pointing his unblinking abnormally large silvery blue lemur eyes at John in judgment before robotically walking over and sitting down.

"You need a new wig, that dead possum under your hat looks ridiculous."

"Piss off, toupees are expensive. You almost saw me without it. After I rang the bell I realized I forgot the hat and wig---I ran off and jumped in the bushes, got back as soon as I could."

"No worries, she was too loud---too confident. Never would of lasted...We'll start scouting somebody new tomorrow."

-End