The King of the Box

“Sometimes, I can hear them as little whispers inside of my head. I can hear the little people that live inside of my head.” Clarity stated with a straight face, clear blue eyes large and unwavering. The people around her sniggered, and the teacher stood across the room from her, a frown upon her face, looking down at her from above her horn-rimmed glasses.

          “Yes, I’m sure you can, Clarity.” Said the teacher, with the sort of exasperated voice that showed that she had tried once too many times to knock sense into this girl. The teacher lifted her glasses up higher onto the bridge of her long slender nose, jotting notes down on a sheet of formal yellow paper. Noticing that Clarity was still standing in front of the class, she waved her hand for her to sit back down in her assigned seat. Clarity cocked her head sideways, questioningly.

“Sit down, Clarity.” Barked the teacher. Clarity did as she was told. “And please, next time, when told to do something creative, it doesn’t mean to lie or tell fictional stories. Just try to think outside of the box.”

Clarity glowered from her seat in the corner of the room. “But it is true!”

***

          I sighed dejectedly. Another brain freeze? This was far too much for me to handle right now. First the black out, and now the brain freezes. One bad incident right after the other. I hear a sharp rapping start on my door. At first, I felt compelled to dismiss the sudden disturbance with the wave of my hand, to tell them that I had quite enough on my plate right now. Nevertheless, I let my secretary in. My stiff, short secretary cleared his throat and began to talk in the crisp, monotonous tone that I disliked so much.

“Dear King of the box. You have been summoned by his great librarian, Mr. Fisher, to report to him immediately to discuss an unusual request.” He rolled up the scroll containing the message with an elegant flurry.

“Ah, yes. Say, is there really nothing you could do about your voice?” Blushing, he muttered something about it not being helped, and he ducked out of the room, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

“Little voice?” I called out, knowing full well that she was already there.

“Yes?” A little girl appeared with a loud pop to stand next to my chair, her line of sight barely reaching the armrest.

“What should I do?” She chewed on this question for a while, and I rather hoped that next time she would close her mouth, as she was getting bits of my question on my luxurious mauve carpet, which I had bought not a long time ago from the weaver across the street.

“I think you should go after you calm everyone down about the brain freeze.” She said after a while, helping herself to my napkin, which I had been saving next to my plate for when I was done with my work. Oh well, I wasn’t going to finish so much food anyways. Far too much on the plate. I left a scribbled note detailing where I was off to, and hastily made my way down the hustling and bustling city streets of The Box, making sure not to get run over by the multitude of thoughts that were running around.

          Everyone was wailing and shivering, tears crusted on their muddy faces. I could hear a distant song I could no longer remember echoing somewhere deep inside of my head as my piercing eyes slid over the devastation. Children were crying, running into the warm embrace of their mothers and grandmothers, drying their tears and wiping the snot on their cloths and welcoming the warmth of their breasts.

“M-m-my cabbages!” One wife sobbed, clutching onto her husband’s hands so that her husband appeared to be a pale white underneath of her calloused hands. He whispered to her condolingly, nuzzling her wild hair.

          I took my megaphone, gripped it tightly, and, licking my lips, brought up enough courage to lift it and click the power button near the handle.

          “Everyone, please calm down. Your crops will be all right. I repeat- all right.” I said in my stern, fatherly voice. I stepped back a little as one of the farmers stomped towards me, a frozen carrot clutched tightly in her hands. She threw the carrot at me, and it whizzed past my ear, shocking me.