A Heart Made of Faded Cardboard

    “I found this box in the basement when I was cleaning out some junk to make room for my…well, it doesn’t really matter. Let’s just call it therapy if we need find a reason for everything.

    I don’t remember it being there the last time I cleaned. Seems like the kind of box I’d remember. Do you remember any box that you or someone might have stashed in the basement?”

    “What kind of box?”

    “ It is a box shaped like a heart. Like a candy box, but it no longer contained candy. When I opened it, I was surprised to find what looked like ashes. Do you know anything about a heart shaped box full of ashes?”

    “What kind of ashes?”

    “Well I don’t know. Aren’t ashes, just ashes. I assume they were the remains of something that was burned, and for some reason placed in this box and hidden in the basement.”

    “What makes you jump to the conclusion the box was hidden in the basement. Maybe it was just left there as so often happens; things get moved, put somewhere to be out of the way, nothing necessarily unscrupulous. Years go by, and then someone digging around finds a box and begins to ask all sorts of weird questions about what it was, what was in it, and did anyone know anything about it. Do you know anyone like that by chance?”

    All the questions are logical, but then I’d just rearranged the contents of the room a few weeks earlier. I’m sure I would have noticed the box if it had been there.

    It is not the first strange thing I’ve encountered around here. I normally don’t mention them for one reason or another. Usually to be clear, they aren’t worth mentioning. But this box! Not only faded to a soft pink, but containing for all I know the remains of something or someone. I know it sounds ludicrous to contemplate, but then I’ve not been around these people for very long, and often times, you never really get to know someone. We tend to think the best of people, give then the benefit of the doubt, and then they disappoint us . Why? I’ve wondered about that, and I don’t know. We are just too trusting I guess.

    I have been wondering of late though, about goings on around here. Not all things, but some things. Like when I come into the room, and everyone, mainly just her, stops talking and pretends to be reading the paper, or watching the progress of George my spider. George makes the most wonderful webs. He makes them in the alcove, for whatever reason spiders make webs. The light in the morning coming through the window and turns them into silver threaded tapestries. The most amazingly beautiful things, and yet, no one seems to notice them but me.

    One day I heard a scream. The kind of screams you normally only hear in the movies, when someone finds the result of the most ill-conceived reason to investigate a sound. I went to see, it being such a common phenomenon here, and there she was standing over George with this satisfied look on her face. 

    He, I always assumed it was a he because of his name, but it could have been a Hilda I suppose. I really don’t even know if spiders have names, or would like to. Anyway, George is on the floor, and she is standing over his rather deflated body, broom in hand. Before I could inquire as to the why, she swipes at the web, collapsing it into a sticky glob of nothing resembling a silver threaded tapestry.       

    “Sorry,” she says, “I’ve had a bad experience with spiders once.”

    What could I say. I’ve had issues with frogs, porcupines, and slugs, once a shadow. I know they shouldn’t be things to be afraid of, but there is no rational explanation for most of things that make us irrational, so I let it go. Then she says, George not much thicker than a postage stamp, “do you think it’s dead.”

    “Well, of course its dead. And his name is George, was George, he was quite the artist. That web you destroyed was one of his masterpieces. I’d always meant to take a picture of it but never got around to it for some reason, and now…well now there is no way of doing that.”

    “It may have had some relatives around. You know what they say, if there is one there’s probably more.” She looked quite pleased with herself.

    I’d never heard that phrase applied to spiders before, but it seemed possible under the circumstances. Then I remembered that I had been attempting to find out why there was a heart shaped box with ashes in it, that someone had attempted to hide in the basement. I also had the strange feeling that she knew more than she was letting on about the box. But being new in the home, and on the lower end of the totem pole when it came to patients, I felt disadvantaged as far as investigation was concerned.

    I just couldn’t get over the box though. The verse, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” kept circling my thoughts. I had no idea why, even though I suspected it had something to do with the noises I hear at night coming from the basement. Once I got up the nerve to go down to the kitchen and open the door to the basement, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn on the light. As it turned out the sound stopped before I had talked myself out of it. 

    There is something about ashes in a box that makes spiders and webs seem trite, when you think about it. I do have the feeling that she knows something about the box and the ashes. I think perhaps she got rid of George because he knew too much. Spiders have a way getting around. We tend not to notice them, silent, sneaky. I wonder sometimes if that isn’t why we are afraid of them. They remind us of the secrets we keep and attempt to hide at all cost. 

    George paid the price for her insecurities. I’m sure of it. If I can find a friend, or better yet a relative of George, perhaps I can find out the truth. Nothing would please me more than at our next circle meeting to be able to tell the story of George, his family, and the litany of secrets I have discovered. 

    I can’t wait to see her face when I expose her attachment to the heart shaped box and the ashes. Perhaps nurse Wilson will help me get to the bottom of this mystery. I must make time to discover the whereabouts of George’s family, and see if they know the secret of the ashes and the faded heart shaped box.

    I suspect It has something to do with an escape. I’ve heard stories about people who have escaped from here, and were never heard from again. Perhaps one of those who didn’t make it, ended up in that faded pink box. The box was after all, in the old coal room next to the boiler. I’ve heard stories about people like Jimmy Hoffa who went missing, and people assumed they were incinerated for some reason. 

    I can’t help but wonder if what’s in that box could be…nah, couldn’t be. Jimmy was a big guy. He wouldn’t fit in that box, and why would someone write, “I love you,” on the inside of the boxes cover. Most executions aren’t acts of love, and I never heard of anyone who even thought about loving Jimmy, not even his mother. 

    I’m betting the spider murderer knows for sure. We’ll find out at tomorrows meeting, if Miss Wilson will allow me to bring the box and ashes. She told me there are rules about such things, but I hope to change her mind. This is important if you are in the least concerned about faded heart shaped boxes and murdered spiders.