What's in the Box

I went looking for something ordinary.

This is how it started.

I was not searching for answers.

I was not investigating.

I was not prepared to uncover
the great unanswered question
of my fucking existence.

I was looking for a thing.

A normal thing.

The kind of thing you look for
when you think your day
is going to remain
mercifully boring.

Instead,

I found a box.

Inside the box

was another box.

Which, in hindsight,
was the universe
trying to warn me.

I ignored it.

Because apparently
I have the survival instincts
of a raccoon with a flashlight.

So I opened the second box.

And there it was.

Something.

I will not say what.

Not because I am mysterious.

Because I would like
to retain what remains
of my dignity.

It was dirty.

It was used.

It was profoundly committed
to being something
I never wanted to see.

And somehow,

somehow,

there was another layer
to the whole fucking situation.

A missing thing
was no longer missing.

It had apparently been
on an adventure.

Without me.

I stood there
holding the evidence
of an event
I had not witnessed,

trying to make the pieces fit.

They did not fit.

Of course they didn't.

Because this was apparently
a puzzle designed
by a drunk engineer
with a personal grudge.

I asked questions.

Questions were answered.

The answers created
more questions.

Those questions created
a larger question.

The larger question
moved into my head,

unpacked its bags,

and apparently decided
to live there.

I would like to evict it.

It has terrible manners.

Eventually I realized
the strangest part
wasn't what I had found.

It was what I hadn't.

The explanation.

The missing piece.

The tiny bridge
between what I knew
and what I was being told.

There should have been
something there.

Something simple.

Something that made
the whole ridiculous mess
snap neatly into place.

Instead—

nothing.

Just space.

A great, echoing
fucking cathedral
of unanswered questions.

And somewhere inside that space

is the version of me
who existed five minutes
before I opened the box.

She knew nothing.

She was innocent.

She was happy.

She was just looking
for a thing.

Somewhere in the universe

there is a version of me

who opened the shed,

found exactly what she was looking for,

and had a perfectly normal afternoon.

I miss her.