There was a girl who lived in a box. It was a pleasant enough box, but a box. The box had no windows and sometimes she wondered if there was anything outside the box because the box did make up her entire universe. She never heard any stories about anything outside of the box. She never met anyone outside of the box. She just had a feeling some nights as she tucked herself into her little-box-world bed, that there was something else that she wasn't seeing, that lay outside the wooden walls, that may make her feel more, think more, and be more confused than she could even fathom. She had no sense of an idea what these things would be or if her experience within the box would prepare her for what may lay outside, if anything did.
One night while she slept, there was a creaking on the roof of her box, just above her bed. Then a leak began. Water started dripping on her face. She woke up startled and uncertain. She felt her face because maybe it was hurt by whatever had attacked her in her sleep. As her eyes began to focus in the dim, distant lamp light of her nighttime sleeping box world, she felt about her bed for the offending water. She noticed it dripping, gently and carefully, slow from the roof above the head of her bed, the roof of her box, the box that had no holes, no doors, no way to escape. There was a crack.
Where was the water coming from, she wondered. She knew, deep down, that she should be afraid of the water. She didn't know for sure if it was water, because who knew what was outside the box, but she wasn't afraid. She touched the water. It felt cold and wet, it didn't make her hand sting, or her face tight. It was water.
There is no real explanation for the following actions. Maybe she was too tired to be aware of what she was doing, or maybe a whole life of wondering made her bold, or maybe she was just momentarily curious. She stood on her bed. She pressed her ear to the top of her box. All she could hear outside was a roar. She wasn't sure what it was, a rumbling roar like nothing she'd ever heard before. She noticed the box roof vibrating next to her cheek. She wasn't sure if the top of her box had always made this sound and this motion or not. She'd never thought to put her ear up there before.
This roar stirred something in her. Suddenly she had no apprehension. She wasn't even thinking. There was no little voice warning her. She was banging, ripping, pulling, pounding at the top of her box. She hit it with her fists. She bounced up on her bed and smashed her shoulder into the roof. Soon it began to crumble. Pieces came dropping off onto her bed, making a mess that would take weeks to clean up. She didn't even care if anyone could hear her. She was frantic. Water drenched her face as it poured into her bed and onto her pajamas.
She grasped around the hole in the world above her. Light was above, a pale, grey-blue light, more light than was in her box. It laid its rays across her bed. She pulled herself up through the hole with everything she could. She could almost see above the line of the roof when all of a sudden she tumbled painfully back into her bed. Her ankle made a crunching sound and her head hit the wall her bed was pushed against.
For a moment she wasn't sure she could breathe. Then the darkness and the pain lessened. The light came streaming through onto her and the grey light made her scraped-throbbing palms feel better. The water came in even, shaking drops that fell over the space of the entire gash in her ceiling. The hole was quite big. She steadied herself on her feet. Her ankle smarted a little but she could stand. She grabbed the edges of the hole once again. This time she tugged at the ceiling. It seemed sturdier than before. There was a beam of wood that she could actually wrap her hands around.
She wrapped her hands around this beam and swung herself up with all the strength that she could muster. For a second the pain from her ankle went away. Then all the pain from her fall went away as she swung her body around and sat on what was above her roof.
She didn't move. She was suddenly a little scared. What had she just done, she thought. She was looking down at her bed, it seemed miles away. She lifted her head slowly and looked around her.
The water was falling from the sky like a million faucets that needed new washers. She was sitting on what looked to be dirt, like in her potted plants in the box. When it had been over-watered. She had never seen so much dirt all together in one place. The top of her roof was dirt. This seemed somehow appropriate and silly all at the same time. It was dark but not dark in this place as if there was light even when no light was on. What was this place, she wondered, and what should she do now?
She could jump down onto her bed and seal the hole, or she could stay in this new place. She was tired. Her ankle and head ached. This place was uninviting. It was cold. She looked down at her bed covered with roof and water. Her stuffed dog was laying on her nightstand. She wanted to jump back down and hug her dog. She knew she had a choice to make. A choice that would affect the rest of her life.
She stood on her smarting ankle and looked around her again. She picked a direction and walked away from the only way she knew back to everything she'd ever known.
At first she walked slowly, limping, painful, dripping. But then the water stopped falling from the sky, there were more rocks on the floor, there was less light, she got tired. She wasn't sure when but she was sitting on dry ground and she was closing her eyes.
When she woke up, there was a bright light in the sky, how she once imagined the sun would look from a story she'd heard about one. SUN. She was sure it was a sun. She panicked. The place that she'd heard of with a sun was a violent and scary place. This was a fictional place with weapons and anger. She stood up to run towards the hole in the ground that would be the way home to her box. She stood up but fell back down, her ankle had swollen up and become dark navy blue-greens under her pajamas. The pain shot through her entire leg. Tears gushed into her eyes without her calling them. They streamed down her face, even though she felt like she was too frightened to cry. She looked one way and saw flat ground, pilled with dirt. The other way were rocky towers of mountain that held shadows and huge plants.
She knew that she'd not seen or felt the mountains beneath her feet last night. It looked as though the bumpy blue hangings that had trembled in the sky last night had fallen to earth, turning brown with dirt and the morning sun. She stood again, this time more carefully. She walked back towards the long stretch of dirt-laden ground. She couldn't see anything, but eventually she had to run into the entrance to her box.
She walked slowly and the sun passed through the open expanse above her. She didn't see anything but dirt and the distant mountains, and puddles, and sun, and more dirt. She limped on. It began to get darker, grey light like she remembered seeing first in this new place. She wished she hadn't opened and looked for the water-leak's source in her ceiling. Her box had been a good box. She should have just sealed the leak and gone on sleeping in her own bed with her stuffed dog.
The sun went away. Now she cried out of frustration. She was hungry and in pain. Her head throbbed. She tripped on a rock and caught herself with scraped hands that gave way. Her face hit dirt, she felt dirt grind into her chin and her lips. She could taste it. She cried loud because there was no one to hear her, she sobbed and gasped herself to sleep.
The next day was much like the previous. Her terror had dulled, so had the pain in her ankle. She walked more quickly and hunger seemed to make her eyes sharper. She walked over dirt and more dirt. She saw no holes in the ground. She saw nothing. She cried quietly and constantly, her eyes sore from rubbing away tears with gritty hands. Her pajamas had browned where they had touched the ground. She missed her stuffed dog. She missed her world. She missed her box.
One morning, she decided that she would just will herself to die. She had no hope anymore of finding her box. She wasn't dreadfully hungry or tired anymore but couldn't seem to bring herself to move. She closed her eyes and laid her head down on the rough ground. She willed death to come. She hoped that death wouldn't be slow and torturous.
She didn't have to wait long. She could feel death walking up the legs of her pajamas. She could feel it leave for a second and then re-alight on her arm. Death had long toes with tiny talons that walked gently towards her head. She was glad death was gentle.
Death was on her shoulder and she took a large sigh because she knew it would soon be over. Death cawed at her like a crow. She opened her eyes. Death was a crow. Death is a crow, she asked herself.
The crow flapped its wings twice and glided off of her to a space on the ground in front of her. She had never seen a crow that wasn't in a cage. True that crows were common pets in her box but she had never seen one this big or wandering around free.
The crow began a dancing that she assumed only wild crows did. This dance seemed to involve a lot of kicking and cawing. Strutting back and forth. Every once in a while the crow looked up at her to make sure she was still watching. She was.
At the end of the dance the crow was suddenly still, as if every move had been timed and this was the time to bow quietly and wait for a response. She gave no response but stared intently not sure what to think. Her mind a blank as thoughts bombarded her and she turned them all away.
The crow looked up at her. She nodded her head. Apparently this was enough for the crow, he cocked his head at her. Then after a short pause he flapped his wings once, landed on her arm, and nuzzled his head gently into her neck.
This startled her from an animal that she hardly knew and she jumped back as much as she could while sitting and being as weak as she was. The crow backed off and cocked his head at her again.
She thought for a second what it might be like to eat him. But then she got her mind back in order and remembered that she would never eat someone's pet crow, even if it was bouncing around wild. Besides she had no fire and was hardly one to kill something herself and eat it, no matter how hungry she was. She remembered how hungry she was and her plot to die. Her eyes were too dry to mist over.
The crow continued to stare. She thought of saying something to it but then thought better of it and kept still. The crow cawed at her and cocked its head again. Then it flew away.
She stood up to follow it but her ankle gave out and she fell down hard on her hip. It shot waves of pain through all her bones and she imagined that this was what death really felt like, not some silly crow. The crow dropped a little in the sky, and circled away towards the mountains that had become harsh little soft-penciled outlines on the horizon. She watched the crow become smaller until it seemed to become a pinpoint and then nothing at all. She wondered if there had ever been a crow at all. Maybe, she thought, it had been death and now she was dead and death was just like life. This thought made her frustrated, she put down her head again. She looked at the crow tracks in the dirt that was now even with her head. She closed her eyes.
When she woke up she was in a soft bed with a pile of blankets and quilts so heavy on her that she found it hard to move her limbs. She tried to move them all a bit and then gave up and fell back asleep.
The second time she remembered waking up, she felt much stronger. She also felt a little scared. This small room seemed like a room in her box but was strange. It wasn't a room she was familiar with. She tried not to move her head and just looked around with her eyes. She couldn't see much. There was a lamp, paintings, a cup of tea. She was relieved, she must be in the box. Where else would there be tea, she thought. This idea gave her strength and melted her fear. She tossed the blankets off of her upper body.
As she gathered her arms up around her to bring them to her face to check her face with her hands, someone walked through the door. It was a man in a bright orange-red sweater with a blue mug, that he held in both hands, as if it was much colder in the room than it actually was.
When he saw her, he started a little and nearly dropped his mug. A few drops of dark liquid splashed onto the floor. A spoon that had been in his back pants pocket clattered to the floor. He stopped in his tracks.
She took a deep breath and then expelled the air slowly. Her terror returned. She didn't know this man. She didn't know where she was. She knew everyone in her box. She did not know this man.
She learned his name was Allen. She called him Al. She learned that she wasn't in her box but in the scary and violent world of the sun. What she thought had been a fictional world. SUN. She never asked how Allen had found her. She never saw that crow again, although every time she saw a group of crows, talking excitedly to each other and dancing together, she nodded at them. Her name seemed untranslatable so she called herself Jennifer.
Al and Jennifer got married. For their honeymoon trip they flew over the mountains and the dirt expanse. Jennifer saw no holes in the ground and no people. Al called this the Badlands. Jennifer found it an appropriate name and cried a few tears when Al wasn't looking.
Despite Jennifer's apprehensions about bringing children into such a frightening world, she had two. She and Al named them Leland and Kara. Jennifer was relatively happy in her later life. She always missed her box. She always had a slight limp due to an old injury in one of her ankles. She never explained the box to Al or Leland and Kara, they never really asked. Out of the box people seemed to die sooner, gain wrinkles in their faces as they aged, and kill each other occasionally. This possibility of murder seemed to make people colder towards each other, more distant at first meetings. There was a sky. Not much else was different from her life in the box.
Al, Leland, and Kara all died before she did. She watched them all die of the same genetic disease with patience and sadness she could never express.
In her last couple of years she thought a lot about the box. Trying to piece distant memories brought in dreams into a whole picture occupied her mind for much of the day. She was never sure if she had made the right decision. She didn't seem to have a choice of turning back once she'd made it. If she really thought about it, she'd had several chances to turn back. She hadn't taken any of them. She never heard anything or said anything about her life in the box to anyone. She wondered how things would have been different.
She died in a hospital calling out for a stuffed dog and screaming that the roof was falling in.