If you asked me back then, even just a few hours ago, I couldn’t have told you how I got that lockbox. I couldn’t remember a time without it, it was just always with me. I never let it get too far out of my sight. Not again, anyway. It was always locked, its contents a mystery to me, as it didn’t have a key either. Funny now when looking back, why didn’t I ever think to try a locksmith? But then, I can’t say I knew where to find one. The idea never occurred. Makes sense now I guess.
I live my life with this box, tucked under my arm, on the next chair, on my bedside table while I slept, hell, it even has its own shelf in the bathroom so I can shower.
I never tried to get rid of it, something about the idea made me queasy, and soon the thought became an unbearable nightmare. It felt wrong, in the pits of my stomach and in the marrow of my bones, it was wrong to be without that box. So it never left my sight. Not on Purpose. Except once.
And, fuck, did I pay for that.
One time, I can’t remember where or how but I did leave it, nearly. It was an accident, but I soon knew it wasn’t with me when my palms became so slick with sweat I could barely grip the steering wheel in my car, as I panicked to avoid oncoming vehicles.
I had started to feel warm immediately and I’d known in that instant what I’d done wrong. I began to sweat. A low dull hum of an ache began at the base of my skull and within minutes it drummed upward encasing my whole head with a boring, searing pain that blinded me. I’d lost my sight, and my slick greasy grip of the wheel slapped repeatedly as I tried to thread the wheel quickly through my hands, trying to pull over somewhere. The next thing I remembered was pouring out of my car into a quivering, agonised jelly on to cool concrete. Pain and sickness grew through me like a fire through a dry forest. I could swear I’d die.
When I woke, my head pulsed as I felt like I'd woken into the worst hangover after a four day bender. My body was clammy and my shirt clung to every inch of me and my mouth was full of cotton. I kept my eyes closed for what felt like hours, fearing the light of the sun would slam into my brain like a sledgehammer.
Gradually, I brought my wet hand to my face to shield my eyes, moving my sopping wet hair that was plastered to my forehead. Slowly, I peel back my eyelids. Peering through my fingers, I saw it.
Taunting me.
I had learnt exactly what happens if I dare abandon the lockbox.
I rolled my aching and nauseous body onto my hands and knees and began to slowly sit up, holding my stomach back from yet another evacuation. I looked at the box again, just sat on the edges of my mess, vomit, and agony. Staring at it, I felt my nausea settle, and my aches fade.
I can’t even remember how long ago that happened. But needless to say, I never left the lockbox again. It taught me a lesson I hadn’t wanted to learn. And well. If I treated it well, it would treat me well.
Until it didn’t.
And I couldn’t fucking take it anymore.
You see, it doesn’t matter if I purposely or accidentally hurt it, it punishes me all the same.
A few weeks ago, it slipped out of my hand as I was coming down the stairs, it tumbled and clanged onto every wooden step, splintering the edges of a few as it made it’s regrettable and violent descent, and finally skidded to a halt on the floor below. My eyes were fixed on it, first in horror, and then in dreaded anticipation. I knew the punishment was imminent.
Within a moment, the house shook with a sudden short burst like a concentrated earthquake, throwing me down the stairs. I tumbled and my bones clanged against every step, and splinters lodged themselves all through me like shrapnel, until I finally reunited with the box.
I lay there, stuck between anger at this unjust punishment, the agony of broken bones and pleading for forgiveness from the box. I chose to beg, as I returned my tear streaked face toward it, the words spluttering out of my mouth, my spit and blood marbling as it dripped to the floor, and speckled the lockbox. My arm burned intensely with pain as I lifted it to drape over the box. It was bending in at angles it shouldn't have been, twisted and contorted from my punishment, but I used the new angles to wrap my arm around it all the more tightly while I whispered for forgiveness.
You have to understand me, this box, this thing, it’s impossible! How can it have this effect on me? How can this goddamn box have this control over my fucking life?
I couldn’t keep living at the mercy of a fucking tin.
That’s why I’m here now. That’s why I did what I had to.
Tonight, I sat with it in my lap, gently stroking its lid as if it were a beloved cat, as I stared into the fireplace. It liked being warm. Otherwise the house would become an iceberg, and I would lose more toes again.
The fire flickered within the hearth, licking the stone walls around it and crackling peacefully in a bed of charcoal. I watched the orange flame dance tall and brightly, reaching up, trying to touch the chimney chute.
Mesmerised, I moved us closer, sitting cross legged, with the lockbox nuzzled between my legs. The heat from the fire was stunning and ferocious. As I stared I got lost in the flames, their beauty, their heat. Their power. I watched the logs in the hearth glow as they burned, and the smoke twirled, ascending, as the logs souls vacated their mortal forms.
As I breathed in the smoke, absorbed the heat, and awed at the power and beauty. Suddenly, all became clear.
I threw the lockbox into the fire.
The flames wrapped around the box and I watched, ready, anticipating. As the lockbox suffered the heat, soon so did I. The heat was already becoming unbearable in the house but I didn’t see the house was on fire yet. I stared at the lockbox, willing it to melt, explode, die. I didn’t care. The heat was making the metal glow, the keyhole of the box glowing ever brighter, as the flames seemed to direct all its energy there.
The fire suddenly burst through the walls of the house and surrounded me. I felt my skin burning and my clothes singe. I refused to look away from that fucking box.
I felt my hair catch fire and my legs almost entirely engulfed in flame.
I needed to watch that box die.
I felt my skin begin to melt, and my face began to blister and bubble when suddenly the lid popped open.
I wasn't ready for that.
I thought it was all so clear to throw the box into the flame to end this fucking nightmare, living at the mercy of a fucking keyless tin box. When I peered into that godforsaken box, my mind slid the pieces together, and remembered. I understood.
I saw my home. I saw myself standing in front of the fire, with the house burning down around me. In that box I watched my body being engulfed by flame, as the house collapsed around me. Finally, my body collapsed with it and I fell into the hearth, charred.
I remember now, and I understand again. As I lay here, an ember among the ashes of my former body, this is the clearest I will ever see this cycle. I don’t know how long this part will take, but I will never leave this place. I will soon forget how I got here, how I got the box, and why it seems to punish me. For now, I see clearly. I am trapped inside this lockbox forever.
