cardboard

Ellie lived inside a cardboard box for most of her life. Her parents gave her the box as a gift when she was born. They crafted it from homemade material, designing it specially so it would grow with her. Her parents made the gift seem special, like something she needed and something she would love.

When Ellie turned two, she blew bubbles that popped against the serrated cardboard edges. She played quietly. She made up songs inside her head. She talked to the cardboard walls and drew all over them with crayons. She never stayed inside the lines. She threw tantrums and beat her fists against those weak paper walls, but they never tore.

When Ellie turned six, she spoke loudly in order to be heard. Her voice echoed mostly back at her, and rapped against her eardrums. She stuffed her face with sweets that came in their own cardboard boxes. She grew a fear of the dark. There were no stars inside her cardboard box.

When Ellie turned ten, her mother called her ugly. She called out for her father, but he was never close enough to hear. Her brothers created their own universe in the room they shared, while she laid awake next door. In school, her teachers ignored her. Her classmates made fun of her, the odd girl with the weird box on her head.

When Ellie turned fourteen, she poked holes in her cardboard box so that she could see and speak to people. So that she could hold hands and give hugs. She learned how to do these things. She spoke quieter and she could hear better. She listened more and watched all of the people around her living without boxes. She tried to imitate them. She failed. She tried again.

When Ellie turned eighteen, she learned something new. She could get out of the box. She ripped it apart with her hands, punching through the old holes, clawing at the faded childish drawings. She walked out of her house and she made her way down the street. She got on the bus without looking back.

In college, Ellie tried to live like everybody else. She pretended well enough that she almost became one of them. She spent years pretending and studying and working. Sometimes, she yearned for the cardboard box that her parents had given her when she was born. She knew the inside of that box better than the back of her hand. Outside of the box, she was forced to see her shortcomings—small pauses in conversations, confused looks, awkward laughter. Her unreasonable anger, stupid passive-aggressiveness, dumb insecurities. When she had ripped open those secure cardboard walls, she had ripped open herself as well.

When Ellie turned twenty, she was found out for the imposter she was. The people she pretended with left one by one, until the ones that couldn't leave were the only ones left. They overlooked her as though she were a cardboard box left discarded in the corner. So she started making herself a new box, one that she wouldn't be able to tear apart. She made this box out of bricks and cement and spent a long time on it. She continued studying and working and pretending while she laid each brick down, one by one. Kids played around her, dancing on the outside edges of her big red box. She made conversation with them and sometimes played card games, but she never left the square ring of solid red bricks. Some kids she played with more than others. Then there were these two kids. She called them the light (of her life). She spent as much time as she could with them, and every moment made her forget her broken cardboard box and the failed experiment that was her life after. She kept her guard down with them. She trusted them.

One day, Ellie was singing quietly to herself when she heard a noise. She turned just as the light clambered over the low red brick wall behind her. They stood there, smiling expectantly. She froze. It was very easy to see the amount of trust in their expressions, the amount of care and love. Ellie had never seen that before, and she didn't know how to react. She didn't get upset that they were in her box. She greeted them and they sat down. They talked for hours. Soon they left, but the next day they came back. Climbing over the wall again without hesitation, they met her and showed her the same feelings every time. They became like the stars inside her box. Even when they left, the glow they often left behind would be there for days. Then one day, they didn't come back. When Ellie realized that they never would, she felt the darkness that followed after them. It'd always been there before the light, so she had never really noticed. Now it bothered her. She finished her red brick box and felt herself trapped with it. She piled mounds of dirt and tried to fashion them into the light. But light doesn't come from dirt.