The devil is in the details.

I’ve always leaned more to the less popular ideas, like why I’m sitting on a bench in Central Park in the middle of February. Like I’ve done once a week for the past three months. I like the cold weather. Most New Yorkers stray away from the park during the colder months, especially in the first few hours of the morning, but not me. I like to sit with a coffee and watch the light start to slowly brighten the sky. I like the cold nipping at my fingertips and nose waking up my blood and making me feel, for lack of a better word, alive. It’s a strange type of energy, not quite adrenaline but a kind of hum that corses threw me awakening all of my synopsis and saying ‘oh hey remember me I’m here too’. Every nook, cranny, cell and pore get the feeling of cold. The dark sky slowly being lightened by the day; showing me proof that the dark does not last forever and I’m here.

At least that used to be my reason. Now above all that my reason is more to do with my inane curiosity of a young girl. Age is a hard thing to tell now a days and she’s usually fairly bundled up but I’d guess somewhere around preteen. One morning right before I moved to leave the park and start the rest of my day she sat down three benches down and across from me. She looked deeply sad but also a little wistful as her eyes surveyed her surroundings.

She caught my eye but quickly looked away. After watching a couple she got up and left but again the next week she came. This time she had a brown paper box. She lifted the tab and looked at the contents warmly before closing it up again and secretly leaving it next to the same couple she had saw the week before then leaving the park.

What was in the box?

That question plagued me everyday for a week. I had to leave before I could see what the couple did with it. When I took my seat again the next week she came as expected. Again she surveyed the area around her before catching sight of something and leaving. Then again like an anxiety teenager I wanted a full week to find out more. The mystery was frustrating to say the least. The phrase curiosity killed the cat given new meaning in my eyes with this. The following week I arrived early with my coffee at my bench enjoying the slight frost on the bare trees in the park giving off a crystal like look. The bareness of the trees is a thing of beauty. To see something once full and colorful bared to emptiness and dryness yet still alive and thriving is a humbling thing to bear witness.

Just as I was deep inhaling the cleansing air ill find in New York she walks over perching on her bench with another brown paper box. Today she isn’t wearing her beanie but her hood is up. She has long brown hair that hangs out on each side of her black padded jacket. She opens the box and looks at the contents tenderly this time, Lingering on something on the inside before closing it and waiting. After around twenty minutes two women stroll by holding hands and blowing on coffee cups. They sit on the bench next to her and laugh talking completely absorbed in each other. Its nice to see in a world where people keep their faces in their phones. The girl manages to slide the box behind the one with her back toward her turned into her partner before walking off again as if nothing happened.

By now the day is fully underway yet I am determined to stay put and find out what’s in this box. The couple continue wrapped up in themselves for a while longer and I’m trying for patience as my foot taps in a rhythm that tells anything but. Finally when the one with her back turned finishes her coffee and turns to toss her trash in the near by metal trash bin she sees the box.

Surprisingly she lifts it as she looks around for anybody. She doesn’t seem to notice me as I stare un abashedly at them. After showing her partner they turn to sit closer to each other and pull open the box looking over its contents. I tap my fingers on the long since cold forgotten coffee cup in my hands.

What is it?

Whats in there?

How creepy would it be ask them to see it?

Im granted a small mercy when one of the girls holds up a plastic half cup popping the lid and revealing what looks like those best friends necklaces. The ones that make one full shape when put together you can get out of a bubblegum machine for a few quarters. The girls laugh putting the necklaces on each other and looking again into the box. They don’t pull out anything else in time for me to see but the fact the box was filled with at least one thing that made the people happy made me feel light in a way.

This happened for four more weeks. Each time I was on pins and needles waiting for what I would see come from the boxes next. Each time I was not disappointed and I was addicted. It started my day off in good energy and brought a smile to my face.

Then one week she didn’t show. I didn’t like it, it made me feel like something was missing. Like the ending of one of your favorite shows that didn’t get a proper ending. I tried not to dig to deep into her not coming that first week but when she missed the two following weeks after that I not only got a little sad but also worried. I didn’t like not knowing and that wondering made me feel off kilter. With another two weeks going by without seeing her I was starting to readjust to my little show ending.

The week after right as I started to stand to make my way home to start my day she walked over sitting in the bench right across from me. I slowly sat back down keeping my eyes locked with hers. She had warm hazel eyes that were wide and open in trust me innocent type of way but they were sad, deeply sad and held in bruised like shadows under them. She, although usually covered up, looked smaller. Not as if she had lost weight per say, although I wouldn’t say she hadn’t, more like she was hunching in on herself. Her light wasn’t as bright, her soul not flying as high. A sadness in my bones started to spread from my chest outward. She tore her eyes from me to open her box looking inside without emotion. After a few moments she looked back up at me with unshed tears welling in the inner corners of her eyes and smiled. It was broad and bright and split her face nearly in to but it was beautiful and took my breath away.

She closed the box standing to stride over to me handing the box out to me. I took it with shaking hands never looking away from her face. She closed her mouth hiding the nearly strait teeth but kept the smile and lifting her right shoulder in a sheepish way before striding off. I watcher her go until she was way out of sight before looking back to the box in my hands.

I lifted the lid on the box slowly, inside held a small medal, a photo, a letter and a wrapped muffin. The medal showed she was a great guider. She ran with a blind person who ran track and needed someone to keep up with them and guide them to the finish line. The photo was of her and the girl she guided. They were both smiling as the runner covered in sweat held the girl with one arm and the medal in the other hand. They were both very happy in this picture. I open the letter next, lifting it like its the most fragile thing in the world.

My name is Kelsey. Im 16 years old. I know you have seen me leaving boxes, I noticed you watching since that first day. You see I have stage for cancer. I won’t bore you with the details but despite what the doctors and my parents say to have hope I can feel I don’t have long. Its okay because although I haven’t lived long I have lived and In my heart I think I’ve made a difference. My mother has always said the devil is in the details. I haven’t won a nobel prize or found the cure for cancer as you can tell but I have helped a blind girl win a race. Ive helped stray animals find homes and even made disabled kids laugh in my ta class among so many other things. These little things add up in peoples lives. I started leaving these boxes holding things from my life for strangers because I quite liked the idea of pieces of me, mementos from my life, living on in other peoples live. Bringing them small amounts of joy. With you, since you seem to be like me, watching and finding the beauty in the little things I decided to leave you with my story and my face. I included a picture of me. So now you whom are not a family or friend knew me, knew I was here, knew I lived. I can only hope that you too will live in the details.

always Kelsey.

I held up her picture. In it she’s smiling, her hair is long and flowing behind her like melted chocolate and her cheeks rosie. Her eyes shine bright with life and her name is printed in the bottom right hand corner, freshman track and field 2020’. Silent tears fell down my face as I clutched the picture to my chest. I was both sad and honored which filled me with a small happiness that I could not figure how they could occupy the same space. She was so young but so alive. She was hear and I would remember her because I am here.