Life Found In A Box

Warning - The story contains the following:

Mental health problems

Physical violence

Gore

Mentions of suicide

Harassment

(Some sentences and statements are intentionally incorrect.)

“How could I live in death?” is the question that plagued my brain in my moonlit room. It had happened all too fast and when I realized what had taken place, what had been done, I had simply gone mad! So yes, I walked this earth for a moment, dead. It was a dreadful time and beyond vacant. I had nothing, no one, and I had lost, even, myself. Nevertheless, I am here telling you, someone who couldn’t even start to think themselves to experience such a thing, my story, living. It was an event I had seemed to know was coming. 

“Yes!”

I knew I would die and I knew how to come back alive! I was somewhat of a gifted child.

“No!”

I was mad, crazy, unhealthy, but something helped.

I had kept it in a cardboard box tucked away in the floorboards of my old room. It was old and had holes where the mice and silverfish had feasted. They had left the contents of the box untouched but instead burrowed in it. Many boxes were placed under the floorboards to be nibbled and gnawed at by the life that lurked in the dark and the wood. All of the containers held different contents with their own special purpose.

“It was deranged and maniacal yet it wasn't my doing.”

It was a treasure chest of memories. Anchors to remind me of a time when I was young and free. I had known the world’s vultures would stick their beaks into my skin and tear me apart. They would do it so skillfully so they could leave my heart beating so I would feel the pain of my flesh being torn away. 

As a child, I was different from the kids who would play outside on the blue slides or the swings chained to the old oak trees. I would stay inside and play the old piano in the middle of the living room. I marveled at the feeling of running my fingers across the keys and listening to the notes flying in the air as they were released from the tension of the string by the pounding hammer that fell on them with the motion of my finger pressing down on the black and white keys of the piano. Its complexity was something that always fascinated me.

“You would bang on the keys like a maniac until the piano was covered in the blood that dripped from your smashed fingers!”

Do you hear that voice?

“Yes! You hear me! Let me in!”

I’m telling you someone is screaming. I don’t know what they're saying or if they’re speaking to me but I can hear their voice echoing in my mind.

 Anyways, in my childhood, I decided to document my life with writings, objects and somehow smells - quite peculiar. I would write about the daily happenings of my childhood. The times I cried, laughed, loved, and even attempted to die. My writings would later reach into the forgotten crooks of my mind, sparking a certain feeling of nostalgia but not only did it remind me of my childhood exuberance - no - it took me back to the nights in which I would go without sleep or food. I would listen to the growling of my stomach and the pattering of the rat’s feet across the floorboard. Once I considered reaching into the corner beside my bed and grabbing a rodent to eat it.

“You did eat it, you ate its eyes and you ate its ears. You didn’t skin the fur off the rodent and after you ate it, you used its tail to pick out the pieces of hair and bone in the spaces between your teeth. You had gone beyond the complement of hunger and for a child it was too much and yet you had not been broken. You still had time before you died. It was marvelous how you survived so long in such a horrible place. Then I knew you were perfect.”

Once I finally escaped the captivity of the woman I wasted no time getting as far away from her but even as the years passed the memories remained imprinted in my mind. The fear and torment in my heart would persist with every beat. I walked the streets and hallways plagued by the evocation of my adolescent torture. The memory of the woman who adopted me and kept me locked in my room with no food except the scraps from the meals she would give to her dogs remained beating at the doors of my mind. Her along with all the torment of the world, which I could not endure, had brought me to the limits of my sanity.

“Even so, we still question if we were already past that threshold, if the vultures of the world had already torn our flesh leaving our heart exposed! Even then people looked at our fragile body, infected skin, patchy hair, and bloodshot eyes and wondered, ‘Is he alive?’ The answer may have been no.”

The voice in the distance called again. “I feel mocked, ridiculed, and judged! Come out and show me who you are!” I yell into the hallways of my house.

“Even with time you still linger on the pain the world has treated us with! You can not run or escape from what we have done! Eventually, you will break. I am a single person judging you so that I can help us, the world has judged and laughed at us for their own personal amusement! Give up! Give in!”

I hear no response from the voice but I feel a soft chill enter the room. A strong gust of rage and wrath quickly moves past me and disappears. I pause in the quiet silence and then continue my story.

In my adult years, I was scarred by the abuse in my adolescence. Physically and emotionally I was torn and ripped apart. My physical appearance was not the most pleasing to the public eye yet they would gawk at me out of the corners of their eye sockets and gossip to the people around them. Emotionally, I was broken and lost, without anyone to guide or comfort me. Friends? I had none. Foes? I had plenty. Glass? Too much of it. All of it, trapped in my skin from the bottles that the drunks threw at me on the streets. I had nothing, no one, and had even lost myself. I eventually rented a small room in an old apartment on an unpleasant street. Every night I would hear screaming and yelling as the drunk lumberjacks tried to grab the women passing the bar that sat across from my apartment.

“The sounds of their cries kindled the creation of something dreadful and its creation led to the moment of our ascendancy! The time in which we would no longer be weak and mocked but would be feared and respected!” 

As my patience burned away by the fire of their voices, my heart began to accelerate. My pain fueled my hunger for revenge but to gain retribution I would have to come to terms with a difficult truth; I have nothing and I am nothing. Once I had let the words be released from my lips I had died.

“When we finally realized this, we became strong! No longer tethered to the approval of the world we wasted no time! We were dead and a dead man is not accountable for their actions. So, quickly, we went to our kitchen and reached towards the counter to grab a silver knife. We put on a leather jacket and carefully placed the knife in the inside pocket behind the jacket's zipper. We put on a hat and walked out the door.

The chill of the late fall weather hastily moved throughout our body. We stood at the front door of the apartment building and fixed our gaze across the street. Right hand in our jacket firmly holding the knife’s handle, we waited. Our heart no longer beat, we could not hear its sound, it was quiet. It was dead! Then after waiting silently and without moving a muscle, a woman made her way toward the bar across the street. Outside the bar stood a man with a wide frame, bushy beard, and a large halfway-empty glass of beer in his hand but this cup was surely not his first. He had plenty more before, we saw every sip and gulp he took, and we saw him slowly lose consciousness. He wasn’t aware but aware enough. Aware enough for him to attack a woman and aware enough for him to feel the edge of a knife pierce his heart. So when the woman walked past him and he grabbed her, we started our pursuit. 

Swiftly, we crossed the street turned, and walked towards the man. He did not notice us for his concern was with the woman. We walked with our head tilted toward the ground so that the brim of our hat would cover our eyes to the public. The closer we approached the more we clenched the knife and slowly removed it from our pocket. Once we were within a few mere feet of the man, we lunged forward and stabbed the arm that gripped the woman. He released her arm and let out a cry in pain. The woman screamed too but ran away, except running away wasn’t an option for the man. We removed the knife from the flesh of his arm and brought it into the air. Quickly, we guided the knife back down but this time in his chest. He fell to the ground and roared and groaned as the blade pierced his heart. Again, we raised the knife and brought it back down! Over, and over again! We smiled as we did it and did not flinch as the blood got all over our hands and face. We even tasted it as it splattered on our lips.

Once we could no longer hear his heartbeat we stood over the body and stared. No one seemed to notice what had happened, after all, we were dead! After being satisfied with what we had done, we left. We could not return to our small apartment so we planned to return to the house we were born in. We smiled at the thought of getting revenge after years of harassment. With every step, we fantasized about how we would kill the woman. The thought echoed in our head hurrying our pace. After five days of non-stop walking with blood on our face and a knife in our hand, we reached the driveway of our past. Slowly we walked up and knocked on the door. As the lock rattled open we became excited and raised our knife, but before the door opened we had another plan. I wanted her to see our face first."

The door of the house opened and an old woman came to the door. Immediately I recognized her and rage filled my body, but once she realized who I was her reaction was unexpected. She screamed at the sight of me and started cursing and rebuking me. She said, "Go away! Are you here to hurt me again and take my other eye? You stabbed me once and now you're here to finish the job! I should have gotten rid of you a long time ago. Would have done the whole world a favor!" I was confused and enraged by her words! I had never stabbed her before but now I will.

"Her words brought our rage to its brim. We could no longer resist the temptation so we lunged forward and stabbed her in the heart. The rest of what happened does not need to be repeated for it was no different from the man at the bar. It ended with a dead body at the door and fresh blood on my clothes and hands. “It has been done!” We whispered into the silent air of the house.

We then walked the hallways of the house that the woman kept away from us as a child. We went to every room and hallway and saw all the food and things she held away from us. We did not cry nor did we weep. We had no emotion that would make us weak. Then, out of curiosity, we returned to the prison cell we called our room. It looked the same as we had left it. Perhaps the woman was too ashamed to go into the room - no - she had no remorse for her actions. The mattress lay dirty on the floor as we left it. The chair remained broken as we left it, and even the bucket of feces remained in the corner, as… we… left it. We stood in the middle of the room and looked around in a whirlwind. It all came rushing back in an instant we realized… WE ARE DEAD! Then, instantly, tears ran down our wrinkled pale face. We paced the room and pondered what we had learned and then as we stepped on a floorboard a loud creak was released from the wood.

The rest of what happened we can not bear to repeat, cause after that we were once again, weak.” 

I stopped pacing across the room and removed my left foot from the floorboard. I stepped back and stared at the ground. I knelt on my knees and raised my knife once more. Tears rolled down my eyes and pain coursed through my body. My hands shook and my body ached but I mustered up enough strength to raise my knife. Then, quickly, I brought my knife down, and brought it up and down, over and over. Then I stopped and looked at what I had done. I had made a hole in the ground. Quickly, I reached my hand into it. I pulled out a cardboard box and frantically opened it. I stuck my hand into the box and saw writings, objects, and a camera. I was gifted the camera on my twelfth birthday, a month before my mother died. She told me to take photos with it so that when I get older I’ll remember moments of my life. After my mom died I took many photos, it reminded me of her but when I went to live with the woman I hid it so It wouldn’t be taken. Eventually, as time passed, I forgot about my camera and my mother with it. It stayed hidden in a box with all the pictures I took.

I returned my hand to the hole I excavated in the floorboards and grabbed another box. I opened it gently this time and reached inside. The first photo I grabbed was of my old house and the next was of this one. I found one of a playground, a church, a man, a woman, and more. Out of all the photos I had procured, none affected me like the next. 

“The next photo gave us life and caused you to block me out!”

The photo was of a woman with vanilla skin. Her eyes were a pristine blue that sparkled in the sunlight and her long lashes shaded her pupils from the violent rays of the sun. She wore a yellow dress and green earrings. She looked up into the clear blue sky and smiled, then I smiled, it was my mother. Instantly my pain and aches went away and I heard a soft drumming in my chest. Slowly the sound began to quicken and intensify. My eyes became populated with color and life. I was no longer dead. I grabbed all the boxes of photos, items, and my camera and proceeded to leave the house.

"When we got to the door we saw the woman's dead body and smiled and then we grabbed a photo and dipped it in her blood. We raised the photo to our face, brought it to our mouth, and tasted the blood. It tasted like the sweetness of revenge. Then and only then we left the house."

I now live in another apartment where I have made friends and have a job. I take photos of the world for a living. I capture the moments of life in a single picture and then show it all over the world. It has saved me from the plague I call death. I regret my actions and the death I caused torments me every hour. It is not something I can fix but I will always try.

“What you don’t understand is that we are death! You can’t hide from me forever, when you look in a mirror you’ll see me, when you see your reflection in your camera lens you will see me! I am here waiting patiently and soon you won’t be able to resist me! We killed those people and everyone will find out about the blood that drips from our hands and the taste of it that sits on our tounge! You are weak but in death we are strong!”