a kind of answer

The following story was written in response to a prompt from Barbara Campbell on her website: 1001 nights cast for her live daily webcast as part of her durational performance telling 1001 stories over the same number of nights. Please visit to see her live performances. My story was #695 out of a future total of 1001 and was submitted and performed live on May 16th, 2007 from New York city. The version below is slightly longer than the one I submitted to Barabara's project as she has a word limit of 1001 words. The story below is 1,165 words.

a kind of answer
Consideration of the box and its contents was not an idle folly. It may in the long run matter quite a great deal. Consideration of what is in the box might actually be the most important event in his life. He didn’t really want to think about it now but now seemed to be when thinking about it was urgently in need of taking place. So while he waited for reinforcements or specialists or at least some advice from someone who knew more about this kind of thing and so that he didn’t lose his edge, he began to think of the things that could be in the box. He needed not to lose his edge. He needed to not lose it. His edge. It wasn’t such a large box. Not that that in itself was a comfort. It didn’t need to be large—but then it could’ve been. Large didn’t really restrict it as far as that goes nor did small. A small package could be just as alarming as a big one, maybe more alarming.

It could be a box of eggs separated by layers of that kind of particle mash molded in half egg-shaped cups like egg cartons for transport from the farm or factory or where ever the eggs were coming from. For that matter, in this heat, if they were eggs it wouldn’t take long for a nasty odor to emanate from such a large number of eggs if they remained undisturbed and if they had broken in their fall from wherever they came from. They could be eggs. Probably not eggs that would hatch even if they were kept warm enough. Probably eggs intended for kitchens. If so they might start to stink soon. How long would it take for them to stink?

He sat and contemplated the box. It seemed like a good idea to take this very seriously. Such a box could contain a world of hurt. Or nothing. Better not risk it.

It might be a computer. What were the chances? It could be a small one. They get smaller and smaller these days. It could be a laptop of a particular shape and the padding that would be around it, or a carton of cell phones all with their separate packaging and instructions.

He was getting hot sitting here, like this, wondering.

Perhaps a tighter attitude, one of wariness and attention. Tension. Perhaps staying alive depended on tension or on the lack of it. It could go either way.

Slowly his mind wavered over the heat strokes of the sun that shimmered across the road. The place on this side of the box, the space between where he cowered or, no, the place where he waited, and the position of the box was melting in the heat.

It could hold ten bottles of lager. Would ten bottles fill it up or would there be extra room? How big are the bottles? Or shampoo, it could be a shipment of shampoo. Or the kind of whipping cream that comes in cans and you shake it and the cream comes out in foam. It isn’t really like cream it is more like some kind of petroleum product but some people liked it. That stuff might explode. Wouldn’t it need to stay cold? Or it could be mangoes from India, the fresh ones, that one’s family send and they must be eaten within a few days because they are all ripe now. The smell is overwhelming. It is intoxicating and then before you can say stop it has become overpowering and sickening and like rot and festering and it is too sweet and calls flies and little gnats that swarm. There’s no design on the outside of the box but maybe there is a box within a box. The design for the mangoes might be hidden inside. Or tea cups with the bubble wrap to keep them from clinking together. Or just the tea. That would be it, bags of tea. Some kind of tea. What kind of tea? How great to have a cup of tea just now. Strangely satisfying to think of a warm drink in this heat. Why wouldn’t it be food? Or tea, in the box. Or rolls of toilet paper. A turtle with a little bit of lettuce to eat. Or ten pints of lager. Or ten prayers from a sacred place. Or ten monkeys cooped up for days so tired from screeching they’ve gone silent. Or ten dreams of old people not able to move. Ten times the rays of the sun. Or, he thought, ten days from my childhood and the smell of sand burning the soles of my feet. A box of shells from the shore. Photographs from a life’s worth of holidays. Tourist brochures from a travel agent gone out of business long ago. Ten promises from the father of a young girl with long eye lashes and round, deep set eyes. The bandages of a saint. The colors of the army. A bag of sand from home. The top ten tastes of food from my home town. Air from 10,000 feet above sea level on the volcano called house of the sun.

What if there were a head in there. A formerly human head now just a rotting hulk of flesh and skull and dead hair. The bodies they found didn’t have their heads and no one has found the heads yet and there could be exactly two heads in there or, well, there might be some extra space, depending on how big the heads are by now. Do heads swell? They could be quite raw by now. Quite rough. Quite hard to look at.

What’s the likelihood that the box is totally empty? Somehow that sounds right. It is empty. And the squad will show up and it will be empty and here will be a round of shoulder slapping and silly grins. Once the tension mounts and then breaks as the discovery is made. Perhaps the forward man will give it a good kick and everyone can see it’s as light as air. Just the cardboard. It is a cardboard box. That’s what it appears to be. Nothing really hazardous or sinister about it on the surface. It’s just. It’s just that. It’s just that no one saw how it got there and, well, it could just be empty but it is hard to tell from here. He told himself again that he is not an expert. He should wait for the expert.

He wanted even more now to just walk over and take a look. And the more he thought about it the more it seemed a distinct possibility. How much longer before the experts would arrive? He could just solve this himself. He could solve this himself right now. He could solve this himself right now by just walking over there and opening the box. Even an explosion would be a kind of answer.