The Man with a Box
by Kirsten
L. Nichols
A man sits on the subway train. He carries a box.
He is an ordinary man. He spends weekdays at the factory,
rides his bicycle for exercise when the weather is warm, chooses French
fries to accompany his hamburgers, and watches reruns on when he is
bored. He has slept with eight women. His friends
invite him out to drink and play pool. Occasionally he visits
his sister and niece. He feels better after dropping change
into holiday collection kettles, laughs whenever he hears a clever pun,
and misses his uncle, may he rest in peace. He is cautious
when severe weather threatens, drives only marginally over the speed
limit, and avoids activities likely to result in
incarceration. His fears are practical ones.
One thing terrifies him. The man is vigilant against ever
having to see it or name it again as long as he lives.
The thing he fears is kept in the box now, secure and steadfast. T he
man can remember (nay, never forget) that once, long ago, it was
loose.
The man, barely a man at the time, stumbled over the thing, alive and
vicious. It attacked and maimed the man, and though he
escaped alive, others were not so lucky, and the damage it left was
irreversible. The man counts as a miracle that he was able to
trap the thing in the box and clamp it shut. But he can never
risk letting it escape either by accident or malice.
He carries it with him, guarding it always.
The box is a small, commonplace item. Not ostentatious, it is
plain and function-inspired with a usual metal latch. Much as
the man fears its contents, he is soothed by its lack of identity; if
he sets it among his book bag in a classroom, or tosses it onto a pile
of coats and purses at a party, no one is curious about it.
It stands out as much as someone wearing blue jeans in a shopping mall.
Passengers share the green-seated, peeling plastic compartment, sitting
and leaning. The man occupies a generically butt-shaped
seat. He peruses a news magazine left by a bygone
commuter. The box rests, uncomplaining, at his hip.
The train stops as scheduled. Riders do-si-do in and out of
the cab, leaving the balance of travelers approximately
unchanged. The man pays little notice, engrossed in an
article about robotic technology advances overseas (the man always
loved robots).
"May I sit here?"
He looks to a woman's face. She wears gold eye-shadow and an
expectation of chivalry. The man notices a loose, red streak
escaping from her thick hair. Her head is a bouquet of
springs that bounce and coil and try to escape. She is old or
maybe young – it is difficult to assess her form through a canopy of
spectrum-colored garments that fold and layer over her ambiguous (yet
somehow sensual) body. She is bedecked with bags,
purses, and a plum-colored tote.
The man resists the impulse to sneer. She must be the type to
put a dollop of raspberry jam into steamy tea. Perhaps her
preferred physical fitness activity is unicycling. Probably
she has no sister or niece, but rather a houseful of foster
dogs. He manages the international gesture for "sit down if
it suits you, but don't accuse me of inviting you."
She descends beside the man.
It isn’t until he feels the corner of the box carve into his thigh
through khaki pants and then subside that he remembers its existence.
“Oh, sorry about that!” The woman exclaims with an
apple-spiced voice. “Let me get that for you.”
She leans forward, reaching for an item on the ground. The
man’s gaze widens.
The box has slipped. Her jostled carriage has displaced it,
and it lies on the floor. Its tarnished hinge is
released. It lies gaping, wide open.
“Oh, no. No!”
He flies out of his seat, nearly toppling an ear-budded teenager in his
path. He looks high and low, below the seats, above
the passengers’ heads. He darts about the car,
maddened.
“Where is it? It can’t be gone! I have to
put it back!”
His heart pounds. He must find the
thing. Terror drives him to frenzy.
A warm touch at his wrist is like lightning.
“Did you lose something honey? I’ll help you look for it.”
She (it is a she -- he thinks it may even be her) doesn’t know what she
is asking. She can’t comprehend what this means.
“What are we looking for?”
“No...you can’t...it’s too dangerous. I can’t...” he stammers.
“Just let me know what it is. I’ll make sure we fix
it. Let me help.”
“I can’t believe I let this happen! We will never survive.”
The soft hand closes around his wrist. The man loses his
strength and falls back to his seat. Panic incapacitates
him. He has no defense against the thing, now lose,
undoubtedly famished and vengeful.
“Tell me its name.”
To his astonishment, he speaks the thing’s name.
She echoes it. Calls it, summoning.
Nothing answers except the curious eyes of an out-of-towner not yet
apprised to keep her attention on her own business while riding the
metropolitan light-rail. She loses interest quickly.
“It’s gone, honey.”
The man is respectable. He does not make a public or private
spectacle of himself. He conforms to societal expectations
and gender roles. He remains practical and stoic.
But right there, on a train with more than a dozen strangers, he
shatters into inconsolable sobs.
The lights flicker as the train zooms along to its regularly routed
destination. The doors open and close. Bodies
shimmy in and out. They pay no notice to the broken man and
the patchwork woman beside him.
“You’ve carried it a long time,” she says softly.
“Years.”
“That is a long time to carry such emptiness.”
He looks at her. He sees.
“Come now,” she says with a blueberry smile. “This is where
we get off.”
The man rises with her. Together, they step off the
train.
The box lies, forgotten and empty, on the floor. No one ever
notices it again.
THE END
Kirsten L. Nichols is an
attorney and graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School. As
an undergraduate, she majored in scientific newswriting and genetics.
In addition to legal writing, nonprofit newsletters, brochures, and
reports, she has been focusing on developing fiction writing
predominantly in the “magical realism” genre. Kirsten has written a
half-dozen short stories and is working on three novels at present. She
has also been published in Cheapjack Pulp.
E-mail:
Kirsten L. Nichols
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