The Second Opening

“There’s a cat inside,” Hawking jokes, “or perhaps there isn’t. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between. Only one way to find out.”

“It’s not addressed to me, why should I open it?”

“Come on, Javi, you know we have a system here. I’m the brains and you’re the muscle. And this is clearly a task for the muscle.”

“Ha ha. And what will the brains do if this box is filled with anthrax or something, and poof the little white spoors go everywhere, and then we’re fucked?”

“Anthrax? What is this, the early 2000s? You ever know anyone that died from anthrax, Javi? I didn’t think so. That’s just some residual trauma in your head from when you were a kid and heard about that shit on the news. It’s seeped into the collective consciousness, and you were too afraid or too dumb to question it, and now you’re afraid of anthrax, even though its killed fewer people than bumblebees.”

“If the box were filled with bees, I’d be afraid too.”

“Javi it's not… gah, listen Javi, if it were filled with bees don’t you think we would hear them buzzing? And who the fuck would send you a brown paper box filled with bees? They’re practically an endangered species after all.”

“My enemies.”

“Enemies? What enemies, Javi? We sit on our asses here all day ‘working’ at the returns desk of the postal service. What enemies could you possibly have?”

“A lot of people don’t like the postal service.”

“Ain’t that the truth. Still though, what are we gonna do, throw it out?”

“Call the bosses maybe?”

“Last time we called the boss we got reamed out and had to work overtime for two weeks. Not a chance, my man. Never doing that again.”

“Maybe it's some sort of test from them, from the higher-ups, y’know? To see if we will open it.”

“You really think they give two fucks enough to do some shit like that?”

“I don’t know man; I just don’t know. This is weird is all I’m saying. How did this box even get sent in the first place? There’s no shipping label or anything at all. I guess they returned it here because they had nowhere else to put it. Look at how banged up this thing is. It’s been around the block more than a few times. Or maybe it just went out once, with Stone-Hands Johnny.”

“Old Stone-Hands sure can work a number on a package.”

“Hey Hawking, what if it’s full of drugs?”

“Could be, could very well be. I’d already thought of that, naturally. If it’s drugs, then we will have to call the cops. What a pain that’d be.”

“Right, right, I don’t want to get mixed up in all of that.”

“No matter what we do, it seems we’re fucked. We’re just little guys, Javi. This shit is above our pay grade. But still though, I say you open it. It’s probably just some garbage anyway, and then we can toss it and get on with our lives.”

“Nah man, I say we slap a random label on it and toss it in the pile. Let it become someone else’s problem.”

***

The CCTV camera in the corner of the office flickers, its lenses constricting, panning slowly closer to observe the details of the box. If you follow the cables through the walls and down into the darkened security room, you will see figure hunched over his desk, rapping his knuckles against the lacquered wood and growling with impatience.

“Just open the fucking box, nitwits,” the figure snarls, puffing on the cigarette he most certainly was not supposed to be smoking down there, but the detector was on the fritz, thanks to a “lucky coincidence”, and besides that, nobody gave a shit anyway.

Pan back further and notice the camera in the corner of HIS room, the one with the small flashing red light, and follow the digital signals being transmitted over the wireless connection, and trace it to its source, and go through the roman columns which flank the entrance to the Postal Service Headquarters in D.C., and you will find a collection of suits there, leaning intently over the video monitors.

“They’re gonna do it guys, they’re gonna open the box,” one of them whispers excitedly, before being silenced by a stern look from a grey-haired superior, who turns promptly on his well-shined black suede shoes and walks over to the phone and dials it.

“Security access code 100101010… 2. Contact the President, he’s going to want to see this…”

***

“This is it, chief,” the agent says, hanging up his cellphone, leaning into the President’s ear, camera flashes glinting off his black Ray-Bans. “The big one. The package has landed.”

“Get me the red line,” the president says, handing back the baby he was in the process of smooching, before waving goodbye to the crowd and beaming his empty, pearly-white smile.

Only a few moments later, the President’s in the conference room dialing into the conference call of all conference calls.

“Get the video feed going. Get it going now,” he orders, and up pops the grainy footage onto the big screen- footage of a thin, wiry man with his stringy black hair in a combover, and a paunchy Latino man with a 5 o'clock shadow, and they’re standing over a plain brown box with no signage, and navel-gazing as they wonder what they should do.

“Allah preserve us,” the crown prince mutters, his voice a fuzzy echo on the crowded call. Similar prayers are uttered all around, filling up the airwaves with their panicked devotions, but none of them say a word for the first daughter of humanity, Hephaestus’s creation, the one who learned her weaving at Athena’s knee, and whose tongue was first gilded with words by fleeting Hermes.

“The last time this box was opened,” the President says, gravity weighing down his words, “was the end of the Golden Age. We have fallen so far since then… what will this, a second opening, presage for the race of men?”

At this the General exclaims, slamming his hands upon the hardwood: “Then why aren’t we sending in the fucking cavalry?! Let’s get the copters over there, the SWAT teams, all of it! Let’s blow the fricking box to kingdom-come and be done with it!”

The President shakes his head gravely. “The box, and these men, are beyond our reach. What is in progress now cannot be stopped. They know what they are supposed to do. They know the duties of their office. All we can do now, is place faith in the honor of these two brave Americans and pray that they will fulfill the duties that have been bestowed upon them by the U.S. government. If they do, then perhaps there is hope for us all…”

***

“Listen Javi, my break’s coming up in five minutes. I don’t have all day to fuck around staring at this box with you. Look, you open the box, and I’ll cover the rest of your shift, and I’ll throw in a pack of Miller Lite on top. Whaddya say?”

With a heavy sigh, Javi reaches down and slips his thumbs between the cardboard folds that seal the bottom of the box. Flinching, eyes averted, he pulls them apart. The brown material parts with a ripping sound, and the contents of the box are laid bare once more to the mortal gaze.

“Oh, so that’s what was inside,” Hawking says, his pupils wide with awe.

The first thing that comes out from the box is a massive swarm of bees.