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The Box of Life and Death

Georgia's Story

By Emily SherwoodPublished about a year ago 11 min read
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The Box of Life and Death
Photo by Joshua Fuller on Unsplash

2022

When Georgia was 40 and had just returned from three years teaching in Thailand, the box arrived. It came by drone, gracefully falling to the ground. Old Mrs. Jenkins, Georgia’s neighbor who lived two units down, yelled “it’s a bomb!” when it dropped.

Georgia happened to be on her porch and walked over to where Mrs. Jenkins stood, looking at a small box about the size of takeout Chinese rice. “It’s for you!” Mrs. Jenkins said. “One of your young Asian men do that?”

Georgia had to squint to see the writing. It had her name on it, printed by computer and laminated, and under it the words: “Do not open until your death is imminent.” No return address or clue of its sender.

“I don’t think so,” Georgia said. None of the few guys she had dated would care enough to go to so much trouble. “We probably should ask the office for help.”

Mrs. Jenkins went to go get Amanda from the office, who stared at the box as neighbors began to arrive. “I guess I better call the law, just in case,” Amanda said, shaking her head.

Within 30 minutes, a crew of police officers wearing vests that said “hazmat” on them arrived at the scene. They had rushed over from Wilmington. One of them, a bald man whose scowl seemed to be stamped onto his face, loaded the box on a robot that took it to a van marked “hazardous materials unit.” Five minutes later, he came back out, his face ashen. He gently held the box, which had been repackaged with new tape.

“The box is safe, no hazardous materials,” he said. “But I recommend you follow its instructions.”

“What was in it?” Amanda asked.

“Some things are better left off unsaid,” said the man. He wished them all a good day and took off in the specially-marked van.

Georgia put the box in her coat closet. She barely thought about it that year. There was so much going on with her job and readjustment was hard, especially when car emissions were being restricted to ty to stave off the worst of climate change.

2025

When Georgia was 43, she found herself giving birth to her first and only child, during a sandstorm, the first of many on the Carolina coast. Scientists called it a forewarning of major climate change. The year before she had married Stanley, a kind and gentle Haitian divorcee. The baby was born with an extra set of chromosomes but otherwise strong. But Georgia’s placenta would not detach, and she began hemorrhaging. She heard scary words around her: “bleeding out,” “blood pressure low,” “barely a pulse.” She glanced over at Stanley who was holding her hand at her bedside.

“Bring the box,” she said.

“You won’t die,” he said, stroking her forehead.

“Just bring it.”

She had insisted on packing it in her overnight bag, even though everything was supposed to be fine. She just somehow knew she wanted it. Henry hesitated, but got it for her.

With frail hands, Georgia touched the box. And just as she was about to take the off the tape, she felt a tug and heard, “got it. Just in time.” And she gazed at her newborn daughter and felt a bit of guilt, wondering if she was right to bring a child in these uncertain times, and if she could mother her special child in the midst of such new challenges.

And Georgia both thanked and cursed the box.

2029

When Georgia was 47, Windrain Storm Candy arrived. Windrain storms were a new type of storm, with winds up to 5X as high as hurricanes and warning times of minutes. Georgia’s parents had both died 2 years earlier, along with 70 other residents and 12 staff members, when a windrain storm flattened their assisted living center.

Portia, Stanley and Georgia’s daughter, carefully carried the box as they entered the master bath, their storm center. There were 4 of them: Stanley, Georgia, Portia, and Lexia, Stanley’s teenage daughter, who had come to live with them the year prior so Georgia could help with online school after all face-to-face schools closed due to teacher shortages. They huddled as the wind began.

“We will only open this if it looks like we will all pass on,” Georgia told Portia, taking the box. She was open to Portia about death, after what happened with her own parents.

“We won’t,” said Portia, sitting on Georgia’s lap, her favorite place.

But the wind started. Then loud thunderclaps, that made all of them jump. There was the “clap of death”: the loud sound like a close gunshot that signaled that the Windrain was literally tearing the earth apart. Once that hit, death was all but guaranteed for anyone within 4 miles.

Georgia started to tear the tape off. Just then, the noise abruptly stopped.

After waiting a few minutes, Stanley left the shelter. Outside, he saw the earth had started cracking. It had taken out every house on the street, until it got to their driveway. He later learned that his family had been the only people home during that time who survived within ten blocks. Georgia cried as she glanced at the amount of death and destruction. What kind of life would she and her family have, in five, ten years? She felt a twinge of envy for those who had passed in the storm, who would not have to navigate this new territory of disaster and mayhem.

The foundation of the home was damaged, so Stanley and her took their insurance money and moved inland. There Lexia finished school. Lexia’s dream had always to be a flight attendant, but few planes were flying anymore thanks to fuel shortages, so she got a customer service job remotely planning relocations for wealthy people fleeing extreme weather. Web pages with pictures of exotic, calm, and safe locations was as close as she would ever get to traveling.

And Georgia thanked and cursed the box.

2035

When Georgia was 53, she got news she never wanted to hear. Portia had leukemia, common in people with extra chromosomes. Georgia and Stanley took leaves from their jobs, raided their retirement accounts early, and took Portia to the last children’s cancer center still open in the United States, in Memphis, Tennessee. The doctor grimaced as she reviewed test results.

“There used to be a very effective oral chemotherapy,” she said. “Ten years ago, I could cure your daughter in 60 days, with no long-term side effects. But the only company that makes it it is in China.”

“So, we can’t get it,” Georgia said. China was engaged in a cold war with most of the west over water rights in the Tibetan Plateau. There was a trade embargo in place. “Can you re-create it here? We would give anything to help our daughter.”

“The exact formula is unknown,” the doctor said. “And the main ingredient is only found in China. We can’t recreate it. I am so sorry.”

Three weeks later Portia was gone. Georgia felt her heart breaking in two inside of her.

“I don’t think I can live through this,” she said.

“We need you. Lexia and me,” Stanley said softly, his voice breaking.

As in a trance, Georgia took the box out of her suitcase, and began to tear at the tape. And suddenly, she felt a voice saying, “you have more to do.” Her chest pain stopped. Embracing Stanley, she put the box aside and wept.

And Georgia thanked and cursed the box.

2042

When Georgia was 62, her, Stanley, and Lexia were living in Colorado, in a ramshackle cabin they had bought for next to nothing when the Carolinas became uninhabitable from flooding and fires. Lexia, who had just returned home from the hospital after giving birth to a baby daughter she had named Cheri, began to show symptoms of “the final plague,” an untreatable illness worse than any of the many that had hit in the last 20 years. The final plague was blamed on the loss of Asian forests and killed 90% of people who got it.

Georgia became sick right after Stanley and she buried Lexia under a tree at the bottom of their hill. Within a day, she was disoriented and began vomiting blood. Stanley solemnly brought the box. At first, Georgia pushed it away, hoping that this illness would be her relief, her reprieve from so many losses and so much suffering. But her hand involuntarily reached for it and she started playing with the tape. Suddenly, her vomiting spells stopped, and she recovered within 3 days. Stanley and Cheri never became ill.

Stanley and Georgia raised Cheri as best as they could. Stanley worked as a logger until most of the trees died and logging jobs dried up, and Georgia grew tomatoes and sold them at the local market, until all the trees died and the air became so dry it was impossible to grow anything. Then they foraged, walking miles a day to find a trace of something edible, and hoping it would be enough to keep them alive.

And Georgia thanked and cursed the box.

2051

When Georgia was 72 and newly widowed, bandits wearing blue and checked bandanas pulled up to the foot of her hill and started walking towards the cabin. From their clothing, Georgia knew they were the “Male Warriors,” who were going through the area raping and then killing women in response to their feelings of “loss of masculinity” after all logging and thus logging jobs ceased. There were no trees anymore to provide cover, and besides she and Cheri were both too weak from hunger to try to make a run for it. There was no phone service and no police station anymore. They did not stand a chance.

Before things got too bad, when there were still trees and real food and telephones, Georgia had bought 3 arsenic pills, one for each person in her family, to take if attack was near. She would not let them be assaulted; if they were to die it would be on their own terms. Her and Cheri sat, two of the pills in their hands.

Without saying a word, Cheri brought the box, silently, then held Georgia’s hand. The bandits were at the door now. Georgia heard the door rattle. She wept as she told Cheri, “I love you.” She began to open the box. Suddenly, she heard a gruff voice, shouting.

“Abort mission!”

“But women live in this house.”

“I said, we’re moving on.” And the bandits left. Georgia put the pills away, along with the box, and hugged Cheri close. They had escaped. But now they would have to live, isolated and hungry, for the rest of their natural lives.

And Georgia thanked and cursed the box.

2060

When Georgia was 81, she stepped on a viper, now common in Colorado, while foraging for food. She managed to kill it with a rock and hobble back to the cabin with Cheri’s help before collapsing at the door in the worst pain Georgia had ever experienced. Georgia knew her suffering would be short-the closest hospital was two hours away and there was no way they could make it in time. Cheri propped up Georgia’s foot then, silently, got the box. At first, Georgia pushed it away, knowing that if she was not on the earth Cheri could get more food and wouldn’t starve, at least not as quickly. But in pain, Georgia gripped the box without thinking, and pulled at its wrappings. Suddenly, her great pain began to subside. Within a day she was walking, and a week later it was like nothing had happened.

A family, climate refugees from Utah, took over an abandoned house a mile away. They had a go-cart, stores of non-perishable food, and knowledge of how to hunt. They also had a teenage son who took a liking to Cheri. And so, they not only starved, but began to be able to muddle through some sense of a stable, albeit basic, life.

And Georgia thanked and cursed the box.

2069

When Georgia was 90, she was confined to her bed, without even the strength to put her hands over the nearby open stove positioned near the foot of her bed. She was ready to leave the world, after an unusually long and difficult life. “I am going to die today, no matter what,” she told Cheri.

Cheri brought the box. Georgia glanced at it inquisitively. “You have served its purpose,” she said, and began to fully open it. Cheri was watching Georgia intently to see what would happen when she noticed her toddler son going out the flimsy barbed-wire door. She went to catch him, and when she got back, the remains of the box were in the stove. Georgia was gasping for breath.

“It-is-finished,” Georgia said, and she closed her eyes for the last time.

And Cheri thanked and cursed the box.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Emily Sherwood

Education PhD. World traveler. Writer.

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