Snippets and Stories: (R) Life in Cardboard Boxes

"... And..." The word stretched on my tongue as I propped the brown box on its side, crawling in, "... There we go."

Neskyii looked it up and down, plainly unimpressed, "What does this... mundanity accomplish?"

A low laugh left me as I sat further back into it, "Nothing, of course. There doesn't need to be a reason for everything."

"Then I see no reason why I should join you."

"Stop being a spoilsport and just sit here." I patted the space beside me, "Not everyday you find a box big enough to still fit us both."

He clambers in, giving the cardboard a disdainful glance.

Reaching out I pull the two flaps closed, encasing us into our own little space I was oh so familiar with. "I used to hide in these things."

He peers down at me for a moment, eyes drooped, a look so clearly stating that my words were all but unremarkable, "I know. I was there for it."

It was our own space.

"It's been a long Time."

Where the world outside was far, far away.

"So it would seem for those who have not long."

Not long for him, perhaps, but to me it was a literal lifetime.

"Must you always talk in tongues?"

There existed, if one but imagined, all that one could, inside this space.

My hand wound into his and he let me, inky black hair tickling my face as he shifted.

In this little isolated pocket, I still heard the faint shrill of birds, and the road. Ignoring them both I listened instead to the sound of our breathing, of the Life that coursed through me.

We stayed in the box, a rare instance where Neskyii had not a single snark, or stayed his tongue if so.

Here I watched my Mother as she sliced a wedge of cake for me. It was my 8th birthday that year and back then chocolate cake was the newfound love of my life.

Then there were the projects I so often worked on. My whimsies, all that I amounted to. Which was, of course, nothing.

Nothing to others perhaps, but meant the world to me. How I loved them so. They talked to me, each of the colorful characters, and I chuckle at their minor spats and disputes as they clamor around me to get a word in on what they wanted to do next.

The warmth in my chest spread through me as I simply listen to their voices, relived their misadventures, and forgot.

But never could I fail to see the thin strand, so delicate as it is, that holds this rambunctious din together.

Would they be remembered?

It's hard to deceive oneself. At least for me.

I kept failing. My artistic endeavors were all too disappointing, and it was proving more than disheartening.

I wanted to get better. I wanted to tell their story.

I wanted, more than anything, to do it right.

Suddenly a sharp light floods my vision and the voices vanish.

Neskyii holds the flaps of the box open, "That's enough dawdling."

So it was.

He helps me out of the box and I stumble out of the closet I had hid it in.

Maybe it was Time to stop with this nonsense. To end the childish shenanigans of early days and leave the cardboard box behind.

To venture forth into the real world and have my adventures there.

It was a familiar place I oft visited as a child. Dark and lonely mayhaps, but a comfortable, safe, place.

And I was growing too big for it.

I told myself it would be the last Time, and stepped out the door.

But it didn't stop me from keeping that box.

Nor would I throw it out years later, though by now I've long since grown too tall in stature.

It sits there still, in the back of my closet, a neatly flattened cardboard sheet.