Boxed

As you may or may not know, I sometimes dabble in writing sometimes (less so recently). This is a (very) short story I wrote a while ago that my husband found amusing. I think it was some kind of writing exercise where I had to follow some restriction, but I can't remember what.

So what do you think? Am I the next Hemingway?


BOXED

I grew up in a box. The box was red on the inside. I couldn’t see the outside. The box was poked with holes. The holes allowed me to breathe. The largest hole was about two millimeters. I could not see through it.

I was fed only at night. Food was slipped into the box. It was usually pasta. Once a week, I got chicken. Three times a week, I got broccoli. This was how I learned colors. Broccoli was green. Chicken was brown. The pasta sauce was red. The box was red.

The box was not soundproof. But sounds were muffled. I heard talking sometimes. I could never make out the words. It didn’t matter though. I couldn’t understand any languages.

I was naked inside the box. Sometimes the box got cold. I hugged myself to stay warm.

I don’t know what’s behind the box. Someone put me in the box. Someone decided to raise me in it. I don’t know why. I wondered about it often. Why raise a child in a box? And why was that child me?

On my seventeenth birthday, I escaped. Getting out of the box was easy. Getting out of the house was hard. I killed a man smoking a pipe. I killed two women. I killed a guard. I killed three vicious dogs. I don’t know the breed of dog.

I found a job outside the box. Ironically, I worked in a box factory. The pay was good. I never learned to speak.

I eventually married. I married a woman with red hair. We had five children. We raised the smallest in a box.