Trapped in the Closed Box

     "What are you doing?" A female screams.

     "Don't worry; I know what I'm doing!" He reassures her as he pulls a long knife from his jacket. She steps back in fear, only to back up into a wall. She looks about for a way to escape. He moves closer to her. She goes to hit him, but her hands are bound behind her back, rendering her defenseless. He moves closer to her and holds the knife up. He jumps at her, knowing that she would move too much. He grabs her and holds her still. He brings the sharp knife closer and closer to her body. He moves the blade over to her backside. She turns her head in a desperate attempt to see what he is doing. 

     "No, please! Don't! You need me to get out of here!" She pleads to the man, referring to the closed box that they remain trapped inside of. He shakes his head at her. She misunderstands his intentions. Funny, considering their literal location, you would think that she would understand him much better. He cuts the rope binding her arms that he initially tied. She bursts away from him and watches him carefully from the other side of the box. 

      "Are you going to listen to me now?" He asks her, putting the knife away. She calms down a little and slowly nods her head. He looks himself over. All he sees is a battered and broken man. All he sees is a shadow of his former self. He moves his gaze onto her. He observes her carefully. Her appearance is just as battered as his own, but different somehow. She carries a strong feminine air around her, despite the restraints her male counterpart had placed on her. "We can both get out of here if we work together." He looks up at the cardboard ceiling.

     "I've been telling you that all along! Ever since you threw me down here!" She motions to the hole in between the two cardboard pieces that make up the ceiling. "All we have to do is open the box and get out, but no, you wanted to stay in here, saying something about liking it better in here! And that was years ago too! You weren't all that old! Why would you ever do that?" She screams angrily at him.

     "Look, I know I haven't been the best host in the world, but everyone else pushed me in here and closed the lid. It's not my fault!" He defends himself from his female counterpart. "I was just a kid. I didn't know what I was doing."

     "So what's so different now?" She questions him. Her voice is filled with a righteous anger. "You've been trapped in here for a long time, what's changed?" He points toward the hole in the ceiling. 

    "Someone is trying to get me out of here. I want out. I'm tired of the same old routine." He tells her. Her anger diminishes a little. She becomes more open to helping the man escape from the closed box, but only on the condition that he brings his female counterpart with him. Otherwise, there is no point in escaping. 

    "Fine. We'll escape." She moves toward the right wall, where the beginning of one closed flap is attached. "Boost me up." She orders him. "I'll push it open and then we'll do the other side." He nods at her and comes closer. He grabs her foot and picks her up. She reaches for the flap and manages to push it open. "Done. Other side." 

     They move over to the opposite side of the box and do the same. "Now what?" The man asks her. She looks down at him from her elevated position and smiles cruelly at him. She then grabs the side and pulls herself up. She gently balances on the wall of the box.

    "Well now I leave you here." She says in an attempt to break their contract. She looks about on the other side of the box and sees an entire world waiting for her. She remembers the man and has a change of heart, sort of. "I'll wait for you on the other side of the wall."

     "How am I supposed to get over?" He protests as if it's impossible. She shrugs at him.

     "Think outside of the box." She tells him as she jumps down and lands on the outside of the box. He is confused and wanders around as he tries to figure out what she meant. He eventually begins to remember what he saw when he could see over the walls. The world he remembers is a world of possibilities, where the impossible is always possible. Pigs fly and cats dance. The sun sometimes never sets and occasionally has tea with the moon. The man can't make sense of any of it, yet feels comfort in the strangeness of it all. It reminds him of his childhood after all. 

    He begins to plan his escape. He looks around the empty cardboard box. He pulls out his long knife and throws it at the wall. It goes through and creates a hole, allowing him to peek through. He sees the world he remembers and knows that he has to go there, despite what the others tell him. "What destroys cardboard?" He asks himself. The answer he gets from himself is something that every person is familiar with. "Water!" He searches the box to find no water. He sits down in defeat. "It's impossible." He mutters and then lies down. With the box open, the strange sky of the world can be seen. The moon and the sun are having tea together. He remembers that nothing is impossible in this world. He dusts off a hose that seems to have just randomly appeared. He points it at the walls of the box and water comes rushing from the hose. The water soaks the wall, weakening it. He drops the hose and it mysteriously disappears. He then runs at the weakened spot in the cardboard. He bursts through it victoriously and escapes the box. His female counterpart awaits him outside and catches him.

     "Good job. I was hoping you would understand. Welcome to your imagination."

-Zero