The Box

            I found it today. I found the Box.

It sat there underneath the secret earth, gleaming with mysterious, untold secrets. It looked at me—dared me—to open it and unleash everything I’ve ever questioned.

            I remember her words well. I’m sorry, she said. I’ve hidden the Box, she said. Please find it, she said.

            I thought she was speaking in riddles. I thought she was losing her sanity. In that brief last moment I ever had of her, I lost every speck of hope I ever had to begin with.

            But here the Box sat, closed for many years like an ancient artifact waiting to be discovered. The dirty gems around the Box gleamed under the smothering, screaming sun, almost as if it was threatening me to bury it back under the quiet, peaceful earth where it would rest forever in purity, untouched by my soiled human hands.

            The wind blew against my skin, making my skin prickle with goose bumps. Go away, it cried. Go away.

            I slowly dug out the box. Many years ago, she and I would play pirate. I’ll make a map, she said, and you get to find my treasure.

            Needless to say, I never found it.

            I looked everywhere, and I could never find it. Even when she disappeared, I couldn’t find it. Even when the years came by and the weeds grew out and her existence faded away in a hushed whisper, I couldn’t find it.

            And now, when her existence was practically nonexistent, I found it.

            But because I found it, it meant that she wasn’t nonexistent. She still existed; she was still in my mind. I remembered a ghostly trace of her smile, her long dark hair, her chocolate eyes, her dimples when she smiled, every freckle she had on her face.  I remembered her even when the world didn’t. She still, in fact, existed.

            I stared at the Box. It was the one we both bought together—maroon embroidery gems on the side with a bird flying out of its cage painted on the front. To be frank, it was ugly, but she insisted in buying it. Don’t you see the beauty in it? she asked me. It represents freedom.

            The irony of it all was so very disgusting.

            I ripped open the Box.

            I didn’t know what to expect.

            Maybe I was expecting a lot; she did, after all, told me that she would only put her dearest and precious things in the Box.

            But there was almost nothing in it.

            Almost nothing.

            There, hidden in the shadows of the encasing Box, was a thin photograph.

            I slowly reached in and stared at it.

            Scrawled in her curly cursive and calligraphic handwriting was the word “HOPE.” Right below it was a frozen moment in time, beautifully captured in an elegant, dainty way.

            I saw her. I saw me. I saw a pigeon flying out of our hands.

            I closed my eyes.

            The memory replayed in my mind like a broken record. We were so young, so innocent, and she caught my attention with her smile even when she was holding a wild pigeon. I walked up to her and asked what she was doing.

            I caught it, she said.

            But why would you want to catch a pigeon?

            I’m not going to keep it, she said. I’m going to release it.

            That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you catch it only to release it?

            Because I want to watch it fly out of my hands, she said. Don’t you wish you could fly like them?

            I don’t know. I don’t think about these things.

            Here, take it, she said. Take it and let go.

            I opened my eyes. Her map was wrong. It didn’t lead to this place. It led nowhere, but even if the Box was seemingly put in this place very randomly, it connected to that very specific, rather stupid memory of our old childish days.

            We released our first bird together in this exact spot.

            I stared at the Box. A bird, flying out of its cage. Freedom. Don’t you wish you could fly like them?

            I thumbed her face on the photograph, purposely scratched out so it was unidentifiable.

            “HOPE”? What hope was there?

            There was no hope.

            There was never any hope to begin with.

            I’m sorry, she said. I’ve hidden the Box, she said. Please find it, she said. Please forget me, she said. Please don’t think of me anymore, she said. Thank you, she said. Goodbye, she said.

            Why? Why did it have to be this way?

            I’m forgetting her voice. I’m forgetting her laugh. I’m starting to forget her face.

            She is a ghost in my life, a mystery I cannot solve.

            They said she wasn’t right in the head. I said she was normal. They said she was crazy. I said she was beautiful. They said she was wicked. I said she was gifted.

            I felt something wet and salty fall down my cheek.

            What happened? What happened to her? What happened to me? Everything used to be so perfect. She used to be so happy. I used to be so happy.

            Look at this photograph. Look how young we were. Look at the bird flying out of our hands. Look at what we wore. Look at what we did.

            I miss it. I miss it so, so much.

            I miss you.

            But it can’t be the same.

            It can never be the same.

            It’s too late.

            Things changed.

            You’re gone.

            You’ll never come back.

            And soon enough, I will forget you.

            You won’t exist in this world anymore.

            All traces of you will disappear.

           And the only thing I will have of you is this ugly Box.