Kyle and the Box

“Sign here, initial. Date. Thanks, bub, have a good night.” The DeadEx delivery driver said, his eyes glazed over with passive hatred for his job, so much that talking to him might be the final straw.

Kyle gave the man a curt nod and a grunt in return before shutting the door to his shitty apartment in old town. Turning with a beer in hand, he stared at the box, so tall it nearly hit the ceiling.

“Where do I put you?” Kyle asked himself with a shrug. “Eh, tomorrow’s problem.”

He walked past the box, sat on his couch, and turned on his TV, determined to eat his frozen dinner while it was still hot. “What’s for dinner, Kyle?”

“Salisbury steak and carrots,” he said with a sigh, staring at the bleak, bland food.

He hunched into himself, changing his tone to match a deep raspy tone; he often did funny voices when alone. “What are carrots, precious?”

“You know. Car-rots… Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew,” He replied in a fake English accent.

Chuckling as he decided to watch The Lord of the Wings again, a spectacular epic fantasy set in Northern-Earth, a personal favorite.

Despite his love for the story of four bustling young Robbits leaving the Shire, he couldn’t help but feel a pull to the box. It's tall enough to stand in. What could it be? He didn’t order anything. Ignoring it, he continued to watch, but the itch remained.

***

“I don’t need to know, I’ll send it back.” It was midnight, and a drunk Kyle paced around the box mumbling incoherently to himself.

“You’re nothing. You hear me. Nothing. Just like me. A big, stupid, useless box…” He shoved the crate and tumbled into an endless abyss, submerged in an ocean, but his senses remained sharp.

Time stretched and twisted—an infinite wave of light rolling through a sea of shadow. Kyle’s eyes opened for the first time as he was now a witness to the universe. His universe.

A beautiful yet disgusting world spread beneath his feet, glass reflecting images of everything. Everything. Every moment in time. From the beginning of it all to its death, and in its death, Kyle observed the end.

End. The end is not the end. The end is the beginning, an eternal engine of indestructible matter, shifting to a calculable outcome.

Kyle stood, watching the future of mankind and his place in it all. He witnessed the sun's expansion, swallowing the Earth and altering the solar system forever. He saw mankind traverse the stars in search of a new home.

Humanity learned to harness the power of the stars, creating a civilization around one over a few thousand years. Upon completion, humanity was so advanced that they no longer needed the structure and abandoned it. Leaving it dormant till the end of time.

He slammed his eyes shut and sat down. “It’s too much…too—What is this?”

Peeking, he opened his eyes and sighed in relief when he saw nothing.

Nothing.

To his disbelief, a doorway, a perfect beacon of light, appeared in the distance.

“Yes!” He screamed. Dashing for it, Kyle burst through the box and fell face-first onto the rugged carpet of his apartment.

Looking back, the box stared back at him, looming in the darkness of his living room. Walking into the kitchen, Kyle downed a glass of water before brewing some coffee to sober up.

Coffee in hand, he headed to his bedroom to wash up, only to find another Kyle resting comfortably beneath his sheets.

“The fuck?” Stunned, but since it’s not the weirdest thing he’d seen tonight, he sipped from his mug, saying. “Why the goatee? It’s awful.”

Nothing. No response.

Stepping closer to the bed. Kyle gave it a shake with his foot. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Nothing.

“Must be deaf.” Shrugging, Kyle ignored K2 and took a shower as planned. He couldn’t sleep that night. It was too weird to share a bed with himself.

***

“Gah, what was that?” Kyle panted as he ran inside the box; the doorway faded out of sight behind him. “Why did everyone have a goatee? It was so wrong. I hate goatees.”

Pacing the abyss, Kyle waited for the light show, for his mind to melt from an overload of information. Instead, it remained dark.

Stroking his chin where K2’s goatee had been, Kyle mumbled. “How does this work? What are you? I uh, want to go home?”

As if a genie were granting his wish, the doorway reappeared.

“Shit, that easy? Okay.” Kyle muttered as he walked into his apartment. “Woah. What Kyle owns this place?”

His apartment had been replaced by a 3-story condo with an attached garage. Kyle checked out the books on the shelf. “The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien? That’s not right…”

Downstairs in the kitchen, K3 made a powerful smoothie with vegetables like kale and strawberries for flavor, and he had whole grains to complement it. No coffee.

Checking his fridge, Kyle gasped. “No beer… God, I could use a beer. Holy…”

K3’s wife, a smoking hot bombshell, walked into the room smiling. “Morning, honey.”

“Morning, darling,” K3 replied with a kiss. “I’ll be late tonight, big meeting at the office.”

“The office?” Kyle muttered. “I’m fine with my job at a Quik-Tip, thank you.”

“That’s okay, you knock ‘em dead tiger.” She grabbed her lunch from the counter and followed him to the garage.

Kyle clicked his tongue. “Try-hard.”

Standing there, dumbfounded, Kyle started searching the house for clues to what K3 does, and it didn’t take long to hit the jackpot.

“Ha, uses the same password as I do, dumbass.” Sifting through K3’s files on his computer. Kyle’s eyes widened in horror. “What makes you so great, K3? I’m out. Fucking Cannibals. Hot wife, though.”

***

Weeks passed as Kyle traveled through twenty-nine universes. Lost in the box, he wandered through space and time. He’d seen successful Kyles like K3 and K15. A murderer, K7. Three scientists, K11-13, and a professional hitman, K22.

But most are like him.

They’re apathetic, lazy, pretentious, stuck-up assholes who never gave enough of a shit to step up when things matter. K29. The most recent. He was the worst. He liked Crocs, played tennis, and was good at budgeting. Even belonged to some stuffy country club and gave to charity regularly despite living in the same shithole apartment.

Exhausted. Kyle rocked back and forth in the fetal position, repeating the same phrase over and over until the door appeared. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place…”

With lead in his shoes, Kyle dragged himself out of the box and into his apartment. Running a hand through his ragged hair, he stopped dead in his tracks, asking. “Who are you?”

Nothing.

“Oh, right. The whole, I’m a ghost bullshit. Well, still. Who the fuck are you?” He asked himself. Rifling through the stranger's mail, magazines, and clothes looking for some sort of identification, but all of his efforts proved futile. The man would remain a mystery, so Kyle moved on to bigger and better things.

He went to his parents' house a few blocks away. A nice rundown shack for two. A perfect retirement villa for his broke ass plumber of a dad. Except this house. It’s phenomenal. It’s a mansion, but it still belongs to his parents.

Opening the door, because, as a ghost or whatever he is now, everything was unlocked for him. He made his way inside, flabbergasted at the sheer size of the foyer. Kyle stared at the staff as they passed by with fresh laundry in their hands.

“No way. No, come on. No wonder I don’t live in that shitty apartment. K30 must be loaded!” Kyle said excitedly as he strode into the dining room.

His dad looked healthy, he’s fit, not fat, and smiling. His mom looked younger than ever, her complexion rosy and bristling with life.

“George. The orphanage called again.” His mother, Mary, said.

“Hmm. What of it?”

“That bastard son of yours, Kyle, is requesting to meet with his biological parents.”

“Mom…” Kyle said softly, hand gripping his chest.

“They’ll deny his request. We paid them good money to shred all documentation.”

“You asshole.” Kyle spits, staring at his dad. His neck was hot with rage.

“But shouldn’t we at least talk to him?”

“No, honey. We shouldn’t. He’s as good as dead. Don’t worry about him.”

“I knew it.” Kyle stood red-faced. “I knew you never wanted me. I fucking knew I wasn’t mom’s.” He screamed at his parents, wishing they could hear him. Not only for his sake, but for K30’s. “I’m not the bastard, you are.”

Kyle started crying, his eyes burning with passion. “I hate you. I’m so glad you’re dead in my universe.” He paused. “Dad wasn’t so bad. He was a tough son of a gun, but he wasn’t so bad, and Mom was always so sweet.”

He started laughing between sobs, staring at his dad. “You remember that time that we found that old hotrod in the junkyard? We brought it back home as a project. Heh, Mom almost killed you.”

Kyle tried to touch his dad on the shoulder, but his hand passed through, as if nothing were there. Nodding angrily, he slaps his hands to his side. “I’m not dead, am I? Like, the box is some kind of weird limbo. Maybe I need to learn a lesson or some crap.”

He paced back and forth for a while, staring at the ceiling, expecting some sort of answer from nowhere. “I get hungry. I sleep. I’m alive, except I’m riding a box across the multiverse. Wait. That’s it, I read that somewhere, that Steven Eagling guy. He was a big deal back in the day.”

***

Kyle found himself sprinting back inside the box seconds after finding K31 in his apartment. Some things are simply too horrible to be described. This was such a moment. He ran so fast that he managed to tumble across the inside of the abyss and found it to be quite hard.

However. He would describe the mental assault like being stripped nude, paraded like a show-dog, and fed kibble before the worst night’s sleep you’ve ever had.

It was truly horrific. Even Kyle didn’t joke about K31.

***

Months have passed since his departure into the unknown. Kyle has seen everything from a world controlled by China, Russia, and the weirdest one of all. A world ruled by no one, everyone got along and trusted that everyone else would act for the best results of humanity's current project.

It made him sick to his stomach. How did anyone know who was on top? What about failures, losers, what did they do with the destitute? They didn’t have any losers or homelessness. Everyone had a purpose, and it was terrible.

Lying down inside the box, Kyle ruminated. Everywhere he went. Kyle Dennings either didn’t exist or was better than himself. Better than some flunky dropout, working at a Quik-Tip electric station at 35.

He sighed and mumbled to himself. “I miss Mom and her beef stew. I want to talk shop at Dad’s grave. I miss my shitty nowhere job, living paycheck to paycheck. I miss my apartment with mildew on the walls. I just want to go home. I want to—no, I need to go home.”

A door opened. Same as every time before. He’d lost count by 100. He got to his feet and strode forward. His shoulders hunched in dismay, sure that it would be the same.

***

Waking up with his cheek pressed to the linoleum tiles of his kitchen. Kyle slowly rose to his feet, his knees shaky. He grabbed the counter for balance, sending a wave of beer cans and an empty bottle of Jack to the floor.

“Ugh. What?” His head throbbed as the cans clattered together. “Where am I? Where’s. The box?!”

He turned around to face his living room, but the box was nowhere to be seen, and he began to wonder if it had ever been there at all.

“Another beer, precious?” Kyle said, shrugging. He popped open the fridge, cracked open a cold beer, and took a sip with a refreshed sigh.

Walking out into the living room, he sat down and turned on the TV. Flipping to Lord of the Wings, part two, the Sky Bridge. Kyle kicked his feet up, chugging half his beer in one go before he noticed it.

Next to his coffee table on the floor, a small receipt. He grumbled, picking it up. “DeadEx Freight… huh. I didn’t order anything.”

He crumbled up the receipt and threw it into a growing pile of beer cans and paper in the corner, laughing. “Signed for the neighbor’s crap again, pfft. Figures.”