The Box

Let me tell you how much I love the Box. The Box is quiet and dark and you have it all to yourself for as long as you like. I do love the Box. It can be quite hot. So hot you’ll sweat your balls off (sorry girls, there are no ladies in the box). But I like the heat, dry or otherwise. Gets the sweat up and out taking all the demons with it. But it leaves behind the crazy. Oh, yes it does.

Yeah, you have to shit and piss in a bucket and they never give you enough water but no one’s beating on you, trying to bugger you or make you do their work. It’s almost like a vacation.

You get to sit all day doing nothing, sleep as much as you want, and just while away the hours.

Yes, I do love the box. But today they let me out. They pulled me up and out of my Box like a newborn pushed out into the world. Then they kicked me out of the prison, put me on a bus, and shipped me to Phoenix far away from my beloved Box.

And now I’m back on the street. I miss the Box. I think of it night and day. I tried to make my own Box, but it wasn’t the same. It lacked that, je ne sais quoi, special something. I try not to think about the Box as I go about my normal life working as a garbage collector. Grabbing the trash cans and dumping them in the back of the truck in the blistering desert heat gets out some of the demons. Not all of them, but some.

During my lunch break, I sometimes crawl into the back of the garbage truck and close the lid behind me. It’s dark and hot, like my Box, and I sweat like a bastard and smell even worse. But it’s not the same. It’s too big and I can leave anytime I want to.

One day the boss found me in there and fired me so now I don’t even have my pale imitation of the Box.

I miss my Box.

But I know how to get back. I am going to find my beloved Box. Today. Right now. I walk out into the hot night and find a suitable house. I go in a do what I have to do and wait for the police to arrive. When they do, they find me sitting on the front stoop covered in so much viscera it looks like I bathed in the home’s occupants. But that’s OK, they’ll clean me up and soon I’ll be on my way back to my Box.

My sweet, sweet, Box.

The judge does his thing. The jury does theirs. I show no remorse and think only of my Box baking under the hot sun, getting ready for me.

Soon the gates and bars slam shut behind me and I take the first opportunity to bite into a guard who was careless enough to let his arm get too close to my mouth.

I do my thing and the guards do theirs. The bruises and cracked teeth hurt, but they will heal eventually. And there, in the back of the compound, is my sweet, beloved Box. The guards swing the top of the box open and it welcomes me as with open arms. They drop me in.

Honey, I’m home.