BOXES (Oneshot)

Tommy, Lena, Charlie, and the toga-clad Chelsea huddled as the Polaroid flashed, creating a photo that seemed like the framed depiction of a happy family.

Holding a box of DIY black hair dye, Tommy sighed in front of the mirror and wondered why he didn’t get the promotion.

Behind the glass divider is Charlie, wearing an orange uniform. He was caught selling speed. Tommy stared forlornly at his son, musing how Charlie looked like a miserable pup behind a glass case of a dog pound.

Maybe he is.

Carrying Robert Carlson Jr. is Chelsea Carlson. The baby’s namesake placed a box of home-baked cookies in front of his in-laws, Tommy and Lena, who were so delighted to see their first grandson.

                Charlie has done his time, and it’s seven years to be exact, with parole, of course. Tommy urged him to finish Graphic Design, but his son opted to work in a factory warehouse – stacking boxes and crates.

                The never-ending patting on his back and the warm smiles didn’t help alleviate the heaviness in Tommy’s heart. He once wished for this, but that was long ago. He picked up the horseshoe crab paperweight from his office desk and then placed it in a box with the rest of the articles that used to decorate his cubicle for more than thirty years. His working days are gone for good.

                With a rheumatic hand, Thomas ‘Tommy’ Wagner reached for the box of medicine on the nightstand and longed for the days when he can still go to the bathroom without a cane.

                Lena said she missed her children, so Tommy took out an old musicbox from the bureau and opened it. In a melancholic tune, the device played the ‘Lullabye’ tune as the couple hugged each other to sleep.

                Inside the hospital, Chelsea and Lena have just left. Tommy looked to his side and stared at the white metal box that incessantly beeped in accordance with the wavy green line – the green line that he always wanted to become flat.

                At the funeral of Thomas F. Wagner, his relatives peeked into the glass of his black metal casket, not knowing that life is nothing more than just a series of looking in and out of boxes.

                Or that maybe, life, is just a big box that is filled with surprises.

*             *          *

 

AFTERWORD:

                The concept for this story came to me one day while I was strolling all alone inside SM Sta. Mesa.  I saw this group of students –  all of them are  peeking into the glass window of an arcade machine. They all looked eager and child-like as I watched them, and then I thought: What if it’s the other way around? What if we peek from the inside of a box instead of from the outside?  

                But then, I realized that I already am inside a box. And that I’m not the only one.

                Because we all live inside a box.

-Jim Lodge