Cardboard Boxes- A Short Story

Looking at the clock on the wall, she realised how quickly the day had come and gone. Pushing one of her strands of wavy fair hair behind her ears, her gentle expression saddened. Her kind sapphire eyes brushed over her days work. Everything, her entire life, packed away in cardboard boxes, all neatly labelled and taped shut.

Where had all the time gone? The gut wrenching months that seemed to stretch into years, they lay in those boxes. The months that led to exams. The months she spent trying to get over a bad break up. The months after she lost her closest friend. They were in those boxes. Nevertheless these heart wrenching moments were entwined with the most beautiful moments of her past- however fleeting or forgotten they may have been, from the birth of her nephew, to all those irritating family picnics she really loved, deep down. They lay in those boxes too.

All of these moments, good and bad-once so buzzing and alive; were now mere whispers, the fabric of dreams and nightmares she vaguely remembered having a very long time ago.

Snapping back to the present she surprised herself. Her deep blue eyes glistened, warm crystal teardrops on the verge of falling. She shook herself, blinking back her tears, and forced her eyes to return to their regular, intense twinkle. She wasn’t the type to cry, or at least she thought she wasn’t. She had always tried to use her head over her heart, and she knew the past certainly wasn’t a good topic to get tearful over. Her attitude was that what was done, good or bad, was done. Especially now things were changing so quickly. It was time to think to the future.

She stood up and reached out to take the clock from its place on the wall. She carefully set it on top of her photo albums and taped the final box shut. She lifted the box and held it with one arm, allowing it to rest on her hip, and she hoisted another, smaller box onto her other side. She walked through the door and set the boxes at the top of the stairs.

Returning to the bare room she sighed. She leaned all her weight against the nearest wall and let the day’s events wash over her.

The changes she was making were for the best, she knew that. But saying one thing and being able to go through with it are two different things- and this room, this place; was her home. Her only home. She had grown up in this room. Leaving it behind was harder than she’d previously imagined. Her eyes pored over every corner of the room, every colour in the curtains and carpet, the texture of the wallpaper. She breathed it in, savouring the last moments by shutting her eyes.

After a time, short or long- she didn’t know, nor did she care, she walked back out of the room, her room, and paused at the door. She whispered some small words almost inaudibly. But she knew they were there, and she had needed to say something to the place where she’d been happiest- almost in thanks for its kindness to her.

She let her words rise into the room and softly settle on her old furniture and the floor, knowing that they would be the last parts of her to touch the room before unfamiliar dust began to drift in.

She reached for the doorknob and grasped it tight. She breathed the room in deeply, once more, and quietly closed over the door.