Boxes (Fiction) by Linda J. Washington

BOXES
by Linda J. Washington

An Amana refrigerator with freezer on the bottom, Model A237-I once fit snugly into this box.

As soon as I connect it somehow to that Kenmore dishwasher, Infinity Series box, life will be good. Real good.

I once bought a bedroom set from a discount furniture store. It was real modern looking and all set up in the store, bedding and all. When I picked it up, it was in boxes. Flat boxes. That scared me. Once I got all the flat pieces connected together it looked like a tribute to The Jetsons, all set up in my Colonial brick house. It was Christmas time and my marriage was shaky. I remember that part the most.

The cardboard from the big flat boxes have endured snowstorms, rainstorms, bleaching sun. Tossed out into the backyard, I never got to them "later." Problems, misunderstandings, all those "later" items on my mental list......wedged between the layers of stiffened paper sheets; until one biodegradable mass was formed, and I looked out back again today, and I saw it was all still there, and then I took a nap.

I woke up in an Amana refrigerator box. I was alone. I didn't know where I was, but I didn't care. There were gunshots, or maybe it was cars backfiring. I smelled smoke. It was freezing, but I wasn't cold. There was a hole in the box at eye level. I looked out and saw a Kenmore dishwasher "Infinity Series" box.

I was alone. Finally. No more misunderstandings, coming up short, placades to offer up, no more Jetson's-looking pressed-wood-product shellaced-shiny bedroom furniture. I crawled out of my big box and dragged the smaller box back and put it flush up against the back. I went back inside my box and lied down.

A few minutes later, some guy with a pleasant enough expression cut his way through the dishwasher box into my refrigerator box with a box cutter.

He handed me a Black and Decker Euro Series 12-cup coffeemaker with thermal carafe box, empty. He asked, "Do you have any need for this?"

I just put out my hand and motioned for the box cutter.

I cut a hole a little larger than the coffeemaker box in the side of my refrigerator box and tossed it in my new backyard.

Get Ms. Washington in for an interview. We MUST hire her."


Author bio:

Linda J. Washington lives in New England. She has been published in the small press and her first book, HYBRID, is coming out this summer, available from deadbeat press.