The Man let his hand rest upon the
Chest for some time. He rubbed his thumb along the latch, noting that
it was quite cold, as though the box had been sitting out for hours
on a winter's day. As he rubbed the latch (why did it feel
somehow...”rewarding” to do so?) he studied the grain of the wood
itself as myriad thoughts about what might lay within the Chest
flooded his mind. He had no idea how long he'd been standing
there, rubbing the icy brass of the latch, when he realized with a
start that the wood itself was warm to the touch. Quite warm in fact:
much warmer than the contact from his hand could have made it.
He snatched his hand from the Chest
with a start, looking at the tips of his thumb and fingers as though
searching for an injury or stain. He rubbed his thumb and fingertips
together and stepped away from the mantle upon which the Chest
rested. It was darned peculiar, a box like that in which the metal
was so cold to the touch while the wood was so warm. A slight chill
went up his spine as he thought about the nefarious possibilities of
the Chest. What if it were simply some cruel trap intended to do
Godonlyknowswhat harm to him should he open it?
Well, whatever it is, it will be
there tomorrow, thought the Man.
He crossed over to his favorite chair and stiffly sat down, picked up
the newspaper and went about fussing with it as though he were going
to read it. As he glanced at each page, he kept peering over the top of the pages, half expecting it to open on
its own at any moment. He wished it would do just that, saving him
the burden of making the decision himself.
He
spent as much time glancing at the box as he did reading the paper.
He was torn between the giddy prospect that once it opened, some
miraculous solution to the Burden would come flowing forth as light
streaming from a candle in the darkness, and the concern that some
evil pestilence might instead issue from it like noxious fumes from a
garbage fire.
Eventually
he realized it was time for bed. He neatly folded up the paper, then
rose and looked about the room as though checking for something he
had mislaid. He walked up to the Chest and leaned so close his nose
was almost touching the latch. He squinted as he looked at the
details of the metal and wood, and realized he was expecting to feel
either cold or heat emanating from the unusual container, and felt
neither. The Man frowned, stood up straight and hesitantly reached
for the Chest. He pulled up just short of touching it. He turned
smartly away, took a deep breath and marched into his room.
He
climbed into bed thinking that the thoughts filling his mind about
the Chest would keep him awake all night. Instead, he fell into a
deep slumber almost the moment he laid his head down on his pillow.
He
awoke with a start, with a sense of dread and alarm clenching at his
gut. He sate up and looked in bewilderment around his bedroom,
wondering why he didn't wake up in the leisurely, almost languid way
that was his fashion. Something had startled him awake, but there was
no sign of what it was in his room. He rose quickly and looked out
the window, wondering if perhaps it had been thunder or some
disturbance outside. The early morning sunlight filled his backyard garden. He opened the window and heard the
usual, comforting symphony of birds and street noises that indicated
all was normal. What had jolting him awake?
Then
he remembered the Chest. He bolted toward the door, stopped, turned
and grabbed his bathrobe and hurriedly put it on (as though the Chest were company come to
visit unexpectedly) and dashed to the mantle. The Chest stood there,
unassuming and harmless in the morning almost-darkness of the main room.
The
Man had an idea.
He crossed to the bay window and slowly drew back the
curtains, flooding the room with sunlight.
It
wasn't quite the time when a ray of direct sunlight would reach the mantle,
so the Chest remained in shadow. He stood watching a fleet of dust
specks dancing in the beams of morning sun (I really must
dust more often) as he waited
for the nearest sunbeam to fall upon the chest. He suddenly realized
he'd been holding his breath and let it out with a profound huff
(exciting the dust motes into a tarantella of swirling activity) and
shook his head.
What
are you so afraid of? he
wondered out loud, and shaking his head like a schoolboy who finally
came up with the answer to an easy problem he'd struggled with, he
crossed over to the mantle. Just as he reached out to touch the
Chest, a ray of sunlight fell across it. The Man heard a distinctly
musical tone, a single note, as pure as any note an angelic trumpet
could play, quiet as from a great distance, lasting but a moment so
brief he wasn't sure he'd even heard it at all.
He
froze, his hand mere inches from the Chest, and waited. Nothing else
happened, and the sunbeams with their dancing dust motes continue
their oblivious waltz across the room. The Man stood there, hand hovering
above the Chest, head cocked as he listened for any more sounds that
might occur.
Slowly. Very slowly. He laid his hand on the Chest.
Nothing
happened.
The metal latch was still icy cold, the wood still warm,
but no more musical tones. He half hoped that the box would be
vibrating, or some other indication that it was going to do more than
just sit there, but he felt nothing. He found himself rubbing his
thumb across the latch again, and stopped, determined to open the
latch and see what was inside the mysterious Chest. Yet again, he
refrained, shook his head and proceeded to the kitchen to fix
breakfast.
This
routine happened each morning in the days, weeks and months to come.
He would wake up with a start, then go into the main room to observe what
happened when he opened the curtains to allow the sun to shine
directly on the Chest. Each day the sun struck it he would hear that
single, achingly pure tone. (On cloudy days he'd hear the tone as
soon as he parted the curtains). Each day he would place his hand
upon the Chest, rub the latch, conjecture about what might be inside,
then decide not to open it.
He'd
become used to the whole sequence of events, though much less so to
waking up startled. It took some uncustomary and imaginative
introspection for him to realize what caused his jarring awakening. It
was because of a dream he was having about the Chest, about what he
discovered once he opened the Chest. He could never remember the
dream, only that it startled him awake. The palpable sense of dread
he felt every morning was enough to dissuade him from opening the
Chest.
He
spent many moments each day struggling with whether to open the chest
or not. Minutes, perhaps even hours he stood at the mantle, rubbing
the latch and trying to sort through thoughts he'd never had to sort
through until the Chest arrived. This became his new daily routine.
It
was not a routine he enjoyed. Waking up in the morning with a start,
spending what he considered wasted time contemplating the Chest,
caressing the latch, trying to decide whether to open it or not, was not his idea of a productive routine. At
least the Burden was something he had dealt with all his life, and
knew so many others had to deal with. This Chest thing: as far as he
could tell his was a unique situation, and in its uniqueness made
that much more challenging.
Why
me? He would ask himself. Then
he would glare at the Chest which, laying on the mantle in mocking
silence, seemed to invite the obvious answer: Because you
asked.
Eventually
he'd become used to this routine in his life in the same way he'd
come to tolerate, barely, the Burden. Weeks of this stretched into
months, then months into years. All the while the Burden remained in
place as it had always been, just as the Chest now found its set
place within the Man's life.
Ah,
the Burden. It seemed that since the arrival of the Chest, the Man
had given much less thought to it than he once had. He still felt it,
still saw it in the mirror, but he didn't dwell on it almost
obsessively as he once did. One day he thought:
Perhaps
that IS the solution? Perhaps the mere presence of the Chest is
causing the Burden to shrink, and eventually it will disappear.
With
that thought he stood up from his chair and crossed over to the
mantle. As he laid his hand on the Chest and rubbed his thumb across
the latch, he studied the reflection of the Burden in the mirror. He
compared it to his memory of past inspections, looking for any sign
it was diminishing. It was the same size it had been for as long as
he could remember. The dull gray straps still dug into his shoulders
and chest as though they were some horrid, mutated appendages he'd
borne since birth.
The
Man shifted his gaze from the reflection of the Burden to the Chest
and back again. Back and forth, back and forth his eyes darted as he
sorted through all the thoughts he'd had regarding the Burden and the
Chest. He worked to build of his resolve, determined to finally put
an end to years of this routing and open the damned Chest and get it
over with once and for all.
Still,
the Man feared what might lay within the Chest.
No,
that wasn't it...
He
feared what might not
lay within the Chest. He feared that whatever it contained would not
actually relieve him of the Burden. He feared having to deal with the
crushing disappointment that the wondrous, mysterious, cursed Chest
did not contain anything of use, that he would henceforth not only
have to bear the Burden itself, but also the hopelessness that there
was no release from it.
With
a sigh, he removed his hand from the Chest, crossed to his chair, sat
down, and picked up the paper. As he gave a cursory glance at the
various headlines, the Man muttered to himself that he would put an
end to this whole absurd routing by getting rid of the nuisance
Chest. Yes, that would put his life back in order. He would toss the
Chest out with the trash. Better yet, he would throw it into the
fire.
Still,
it was too warm for a fire today.
Tomorrow...
End
Part 2 of “The Chest”
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