The Box in the Middle of Nowhere

A Weird Happening

         He’d been there as long as he could remember, which was long, back into the wet and misty reaches of the mind where memory and illusion mix like oil. Frustration. Anger sometimes but mostly frustration. To sit, and have nothing but the place you were sitting and the four walls, of dark and greasy steel. To break out was out of the question. These were only walls, no entry and certainly no exit. A cage at least had holes. A cage at least you could see out of.
         Until then, breathing. Sleeping too if he could manage it.

         Outside the box the sun passed overhead. Then the second sun, small and red, passed too.

         And of all things to have that stupid song running through his head. London Bridges. A kid’s song at that. It had not been the last song he’d heard but it was the only one he could remember with any certainty, and he clung to it. It was the remnant.  His Holy Grail. He wished for America again. And a large order of fries.

         In the absence of the suns the ground was wet and the box began to sink. Not much, only a half-inch or so. It had been happening for a while.

         The box would have been bad enough for obvious reasons without depriving him of food. There was nothing edible, and more importantly, nothing that he wanted to eat. He was not starving; they were too humane for that. He wished he was starving. It would be something to do. Maybe by now he’d be dead.

         The sun came up and the second solemnly behind, like a bridesmaid carrying the train. Dried the ground from the night before and made a hard crust around the box. How stupid to have two suns.

         Here, day was longer than night by several Earth days. A good thing, or the box would have been underground several years ago. If you could call it a year up here. If you could measure time at all. What was time for anyway but to measure how much life you had left? They had life forever and didn’t need time. And as far as he knew they didn’t do anything. What did perfection need to do?  Hardly fair.
And this was what he got. Eternity in a box. And not just any box, but a custom-built box. He’d never had anything custom built for him in his life, and now this was where he’d spend the rest of his life. But there was no rest to it. This was life and would continue to be life. There was nothing else, no opposite. There was no non-life anymore, thanks to them and their injection. He wished more of them had come down and he’d killed them all instead of just one.

         Another day. Another half-inch. Suns came up and dried the ground and sealed him down. Finally they sealed him in.

         Stuck in a box with my fair lady. There was nothing fair about it. If someone kills someone else, well you kill them back. That was what was so grating. It was humane. But it wasn’t fair.

         And so this was it. Goodbye Jack. Goodbye Jill. Have a nice sink.