Thinking Inside The Box

Part 1

Think outside of the box.

Means different thing to different people, I suppose. Some take it to mean you must be creative, draw, paint, make art. Some take it further, don't just make art, make the world. Everything is their canvas; their home, their job, everything they do is their decision, their choice. They change what they do not like and shape life how they wish. For some people, thinking outside the box means doing what they want, redefining society's narrow guidelines for how we should all look and act. They see the world as boxing them in with its rules, and they cannot help but feel like this is wrong, like they do not fit in and cannot stand to stay and be the same. And for me? I'm not an artist or a dreamer or a rebel. For me, thinking outside The Box is a purely literal statement.

I live in an eight by eight foot box.

The Boxes, as they're called, are a solution to the lack of housing in Burminton. Nearly everyone receives an address at age eighteen, a tiny box with just enough room for a bed, a sink, and a stove. Communal bathrooms for the whole complex, which can have hundreds of boxes stacked on top of each other, a monster of rusted steel and twisted pipes that won't stop until it devours the city entirely.

And yet, despite its best efforts, The Box has yet to beat the life out of every living creature. Tattered yet colourful rags hang from the railings, blowing in the breeze. Dandelions poke through the cracks in the sidewalk, and potted plants struggle in the blazing heat. Children use the stairs and railings as their jungle gym, and as they skip past, giggling, tired parents try to drag them inside for dinner.

I sit on the roof, waiting. As one of the youngest in the Terrace street Box, I am unfortunate enough to have an interior room. In this sweltering July weather, the boxes that line the hallway seem to heat up like an oven, and today the Box inspector was in so we had to keep the doors shut all day. I wait until the sun has nearly set and and I can barely see the way back before I climb down.

Walking down the hall, the neighbors greet me and I smile at each one. Best to keep on good terms in The Box. We live too close together for petty fights. Reaching my Box, I prop open the door in hopes that some of the heat will realize it has better places to be, and try to prepare dinner. I have two stools in my room that I made out of old crates, which account for most of my storage, as well as being able to prop up my broken bed when I need to fold it out of the wall. I couldn't get any fresh food for today, and looking at my supply, I'm going to need to fight with the stove to heat up something.

I turn on my fan, watching as it slowly sputters around before finally picking up speed and doing nothing but blowing the warm air around and twisting my hair out of it's bun. I jerk the tap on the sink, and it begins to spit out water into my pot. For once, the stove flickers on quickly, and I set my pot on it, waiting for the water to boil. As the food cooks, I dig through my few belongings and pull out a scratched disk. In the one corner of the room that doesn't have my bed or the kitchen, I have a wooden table with chipped paint and twisted legs that holds an outdated radio. It's many years out of style, but it still plays my old CDs and picks up a few of the city's stations and even one of the country stations.

The lucky ones of the city, the ones who are the richest, the smartest, the most successful, aren't given a Box on their eighteenth birthday. While half the country is covered in factories, dirty streets, and rows upon rows of Boxes, the other half is where these few lucky ones go. Gardens, farms, and sprawling manor homes cover the side of our country that can still be considered beautiful. The young ones there get university scholarships instead of spots on assembly lines. Those who don't go to school work on the farms, rough, exhausting work, but infinitely better than the jobs in the city. There's fresh air and fresh food, houses instead of Boxes.

What I wouldn't give to go back.

When I was younger, I lived in the country. I didn't know where my parents were from. I don't remember them. My adopted family were Wanderers, the name given to the groups of people that have traveled this country for centuries. With my dark skin and curly hair, I stood out from the group, but they never treated me any different. When I turned eighteen, I decided to leave and try to find a job, to get my family more money. As soon as I started looking, I found out that I had never truly belonged with the Wanderers. I was born in the city, and I was sent back there. I was assigned a Box and a factory, and like everyone else, I quickly realized there was no way out, and the best way to survive was to work hard and accept your fate.

It hasn't been all bad. The first level of The Box has rooms that people can rent out for their businesses, and my first week here I met a tattoo artist, Kent, who gave me a tattoo of a willow tree on my shoulder, something I would have never been allowed to do at home. I was named Willow by my family. My Box is officially rented out by Denee Reid, which is apparently the name I was given by my birth parents, but everyone around here still calls me Willow. Miss Chelsey, who lives down the hall, gives me fresh bread every week. Jonah lets me use his stairs to climb onto the roof, and once a week, his vegetable shop downstairs actually gets fresh tomatoes for those who get there early.

It's no one's dream life, but there's a rhythm to it, the same things being done, problems solved quickly. In the Terrace Box, everyone has a role they play, and when everyone plays by the rules, we work like one of the machines in the dreaded factories.

A buzzing noise sounds in the hallway, so loud that I hear it through my music and the sizzling on the stove. I take the pot off the heat and turn off the music before wandering into the hall where the rest of the building is beginning to emerge from their rooms, looking around. Some are in the pajamas, some dressed in their dirty clothes, looking like they just got home from work.

The speakers in the hall abruptly cut out their buzzing and begin spitting out static. People raise their eyebrows, surprised before even hearing any message. The speakers are usually only for the daily wake up call, and I've never seen them used for anything else. The static stops, and a man's voice comes over the speakers, distorted so it sounds more like a monster than anything human. 

"An unknown illness has been reported in the Terrace Street Compartments Residence. This building will be quarantined for a period of two weeks, or until this disease is identified and all residents are pronounced healthy by a doctor. All doors and windows must remain closed for this time. No one is to enter or leave the building. Law enforcement will be posted outside to ensure all residents abide by these rules. Thank you for your cooperation and for your contributions to the city".

The speakers resume their static.

Everyone is silent in shock. We're stuck in here for an indefinite amount of time. We have no food but what we already had in our rooms. We have limited ways to interact with the outside world. The boxes in the other halls have no way of reaching each other or travelling between the halls. We have no air conditioning and poor heating. Most of what people who live in Boxes own is broken, torn, or worn out.

As the police turn the lock on the doors, I look around the hall, at all the people unfortunate enough to live in The Boxes. Young and old, weak and strong, the only thing we have in common is the question reflected in each face.

How are we going to survive?