The Box

When I Arrived back from market and entered my felt I was greeted by a blinding flash of sun light, and then it was just sitting there. So strange. So ambiguous. Had it been a last-minute thought as I left; to pick it up and place it there? It stared back at me from its perch atop the counter. Unsettling in a sense as I honestly could not recall were or even when it had arrived. Placing my markets bounty on the table I carefully inspected the thing from afar. Its corners and edges seemed sharpened in the light, brown intentional folds meeting and diverging to forum a box. A simple square box, about 12” by 11”. But why did I feel such fear, such dread? Why couldn’t I remember putting it there. Or for that matter when? my mind drifted away from the circumstances of the box, and on to what it might hold

“BRRRRRRING, BRRRRRRING” the phone rang my drifting thoughts back into reality and I quickly realized I still had not put my groceries away and my ice-cream was fast becoming soup. “Hello” A scratchy robo voice echoed in the phone, “This is public service announcement: with the increasing number of reality slips occurring residence are advised to stay indoors and report any suspicious activity or circumstances they can’t account for to their local stabilization agency for immediate evaluation and stabilization. As you are aware, citizen, our fellow patriots have been being replaced by terroristic agents, unsympathetic and ruthless in their mission to destabilize our glorious nation and the values that define us. Only you can save your country citizen! Report anything that seems out of the ordinary, and remain vigilant. You are our first line of defense.”

As the call ended the box came back into focus, had I placed it there before I left? No, that’s not right. I distinctly recall leaving it on the porch, intending to bring it in after the market. What was all that talk in the message about reality slips? How did this innocuous box end up on my counter? What did it mean? As I continued my worried thoughts about the box that had inexplicably appeared in a place where I know it had no purpose being.

I sat on my couch an old yellow stripped monstrosity with a floral pattern interwoven between the yellow. I sat and I stared at the box, this now troubling object that increasingly made the hair on the back of my neck stand. I knew for sure I had not brought it in. I knew I had not placed it were it now sat, a newfound bully. I allowed my eyes to drift from their tormentor. I began to take in the rest of my apartment. The curtains my aunt had made when I moved in, blue with little dots of white making little patterns. The kitchen, too small to cook a proper meal but enough to whip up a quick lunch or frozen dinner. Wallpaper covered all the walls, like it was ripped out of the year 1972. All in all, it was not a bad apartment and had served me well in the years I called it home. I knew my apartment, its ugliness and it beauty. It was mine.

But this was not. It suddenly occurred to me that this was not. This was not my apartment. The differences were so subtle. I didn’t notice it at first. The things that seemed the same were in fact not. The wallpaper which peeled up in the water damaged corner was flush and had no damage here. The couch I was sitting on also seemed newer somehow, like the springs had less ware. As I studied my increasingly unsettling surroundings, I was interpreted by a loud nock on my door.

“Oh, lovely! I see you got the box I sent you? Well, why haven’t you opened it yet?” I stared at the stranger before me in a stupor. This person who clearly knew me, but I had in fact no recollection of them ever entering my life. I responded “ha-ha, Yes, yes I just got back from the market, and just brought it inside.” I gestured to the bags I had left on the floor directly In front of the offending box. “Just got home? I watched you walk in hours ago. Why haven’t you put your groceries away yet? There is ice-cream seeping through the bag. Are you alright, you look nervous?” the stranger placed his foot in the threshold of my door preventing my ability to escape and encroaching on me farther. The stranger looked at me intensely then looked at the brown box sitting on the counter. Then back at me. “DESTABALIZER!” The stranger screamed, pushed me, turning and running down the road.

In blind panic I slammed the door shut and locked it. I didn’t understand fully what just happened. I turned my attention to the box and proceeded to open it. As my eyes fell on what it contained. I collapsed, assuming the fetal position, this was it. This was the end.