The box

The box was his safety place. When he was inside of it, the things on the outside couldn't get to him. It was quiet inside his box. There weren't people in there to talk to him and try and tell him what to do. His box was dark. Without the light of the world shining down on him, he could see the things that he wanted to see, that he pictured in his mind, as real in front of him as anything else. And though his box was small, it didn't need to be large. It only needed to be big enough for him to fit inside and be able to breath, and to think.

He had found the box in his garage a few years ago, while he had been rummaging around with no particular purpose. It was a wooden crate with an unsealed lid, and inside had been stored a few old books and pictures and the like, which he had been able to transfer elsewhere. Ever since then he had kept it in a corner, behind several other boxes so that it could not easily be seen, but with a path so that he could get in and out of it when he needed to.

He found that he often wished to escape from his world, to breath in air that didn't feel as if it was ripe with bitterness and hatred, and that was when he would crawl into his box and pull the lid into place above his head. The way the box was built allowed for little wiggle room, and he had developed a system over a number of months from him to fit comfortably inside. He had to crawl into the box head first, and slowly roll and slink his way into the box. He was sure that if anyone saw him doing it they would think him insane, but the purpose was to be away from people, so he hardly found the chance of such a discovery taking place likely.

He spent most of his time in the box during the night, so as to avoid being found by his parents. After dinner they let him be free to do as he will, and as long as he was in bed before curfew, they didn't much care what that amounted to. That was the perfect time to be in his box. After a long day, he could relax, unwind, and be alone with himself.

In the dark confines of his box, he would summon images of a far off land that he could travel to. Sometimes that land was deeply green, filled with trees and other plants of all natures, where he would discover wonders unbeknownst to the rest of human civilization. Sometimes that land was on a far off planet, with colors that the average person couldn't even imagine, twisted into impossible shapes that were all too real before his eyes. Sometimes he would peruse the course of history itself, meet the figures that would define its past and future, talk with them, and ask them if they had their own box.

But when he returned to the real world, he spoke not a word about it. He knew that people would not understand him and his box. It was something that simply wasn't done, as he had been told on numerous occasions. But if he had to be different and strange in order to be comfortable, then that was what he was going to do. That was the way in which he became able to control his thoughts, to be able to function as the rest expected him to. They didn't need to know how he managed it. They just needed to know that he did.

And so he had his box. And all was good.