What’s in the box?
By Jenny K Brennan
This was inspired by a writing prompt in a forum contest on Scribophile.
What’s in the box?
I was out of my mind. I knew it could never work. But I couldn’t stop myself. It was that urge, the itching, and the constant need. I had to have it.
And I snuck out late at night, tiptoed along dark streets, peeked through windows at people that sometimes would sleep. Sometimes not so deep.
And I saw it, through a stained pane, which I broke.
So I snuck in, I tiptoed around the darkened home, and frightened as I was, I could not stop.
It was there. I grabbed, I ran, and bells started screaming. Sirens blaring, spotlights glaring. I ran.
Out through teeth of glass that bit, down the alley, across a lawn. I took it, had it, looked at it.
And it opened easily enough as I paced a giggling circle in a shade away from moonlight. Shuffled my feet, froze, and stared.
At the bottom, under the lovely lid, below the frazzle of thin paper, and this I swear I didn’t do.
Through the bottom I saw grass, and edge of asphalt, a darkness, a leaf. I saw it all, through a neatly cut out hole I saw my legs, my feet, the grass, and darkness of night…