The first time I came across the existence of a box was during my doctorate research. I studied the influence of memories on existence and an obscure report filed in the back section of the college library found its way into my inventory pile. The pages were typed on dusty paper and I skimmed the report.
Doctor Thomas, a professor from the same university, made an expedition to Africa to study the psychological aspects of tribal life. His notes detailed finding a box that stood in a hut guarded every hour of the day. The leaders told him, through a translator, that every important part of their lives added a piece to the box to signify the part. These ranged from leaves to forest plants and some animal skins. The doctor set up camp outside the village and, according to his reports; it barely survived an attack by the warring tribes.
The doctor and his assistant arrived in the village that morning after smelling smoke. They searched the village and found no trace of inhabitants. They followed the destruction trail to the neighboring war camp. The translator assured the natives that the men were harmless. The chief of the other tribe made them observe a ritual at spear point. People, who the doctor recognized from the village, were lined up next to a fire. They were in tears. Two men had pried open the village memory box and were shifting through the contents. They held up a particular animal skin and the fourth person in line wailed. He fell to the ground. The man holding the skin through it into the fire and the man on the ground vanished.
I closed the report at that point. The thought of vanishing people felt totally ludicrous. I went on and finished my dissertation. I set up a private practice in the suburbs and started my counseling career.
One day, a colleague called me to say they were cleaning out my old office at the university and found something they thought looked important. It had my name on it and so I drove to the office. I went into the Psychology wing of the Liberal Arts building. Two men, the movers, stood outside and ate their lunches. They checked out the girls who walked to their classes and I went around them and into the room.
A box sat on the desk.
The box was fashioned by a hardwood and covered in a thick layer of dust. A white tag sat on the top. I cleared the dust and read the note. “Property of Doctor Browne.” Someone labeled it for me but the handwriting did not look familiar. I found the latch to open it and the lid creaked with the movement. Inside sat a notebook. The notebook, according to the cover, was property of a Doctor Thomas. I took the box home.
I read the notebook and the final pages said how he recovered the box before the tribe could burn it. He watched the entire population vanish as the items that signified their memories were burned in the fire. The surviving tribe made sure the box held nothing else and then gave it to the doctor. He placed his notes in there. The entry ended with his return to the States.
Mary, we’ll call her, a particularly difficult patient of mine, sat directly across from me. She cried every session and this was no different. Mary had experienced horrific abuse and we hit a wall were her psyche would not let her continue. We both felt helpless. At this point I had the box in my office. I took it down from the shelf.
“Mary, I would like to give you something.” I put it in front of her. Mary held a locket with the picture of her husband, the abuser. He would not let her go but she would not leave. The locket represented the only present he ever gave Mary.
“What is it?” she asked through her tears.
“Let’s call it therapy. Sometimes people need visual representation of processing a memory and experience. I want you to throw the locket, and any other things that remind you of your husband, into this box. I will keep it here where it will be safe.” She took it from me, put the locket inside, and cracked a smile under all the tears.
Mary’s next visit came a week later. She looked like a different person. She said that every day since she put the memory item into the box, she felt better. Her husband turned around and gave her positive attention and reinforcement. She referred her friends with reports of my skilled work. I looked at the box on the shelf and wondered if Thomas hadn’t found a key piece of the memory puzzle.
Other patients added their own items of importance to the box. I placed a progress report from them all inside when they finished their time with me to make sure I kept a record of all the success. The box started to fill. The patients kept coming and leaving satisfied. One day nothing would fit and allow the box to close.
I placed the box next to the trashcan in my office. I looked over everything and realized the choice would be harder then it seemed. In the end I picked an old high school commitment ring from a patient considering marriage to her abusive boyfriend. They were actually friends of my daughter and we met with much success in her work so throwing the ring would not mean much but relieving a small amount of space. I remembered the story from the research journal and also wanted to try this as an experiment. If the guy was half the jerk he seemed I would actually be doing a service to the world. I threw the ring into the dumpster behind the building and drove home for the night.
The next morning I stopped at the mailboxes outside of the office building. With an hour until the first appointment, I could take my time with coffee and the paper. I sat down at the desk, put on music in the background, turned on the coffeemaker, and opened up the pages to the headlines. In the bottom left corner was a picture of a couple that I recognized. It looked like an old high school picture of the young woman and her controlling significant other. He was the owner of the ring and this was the first time I looked at him face to face. The headline read, “Man Mysteriously Vanishes.” My memory went directly back to the box. It taunted me from the shelf.
By noon, I decided on my next experiment. I picked an old watch from a man whose father has molested him in his childhood. We used the item in sensory therapy and it worked well. He connected his father’s body with the watch and now his father sat in a hospice in Florida. I grabbed the watch and put it under my tires. After three runs, it was smashed. I threw it into the dumpster and left.
Being in Florida, this would not give me the luxury of a newspaper headline. I waited two hours and called the operator. She connected me to the home. I asked to speak to the man in question and the nurse informed me that, to her regret, he had passed yesterday afternoon, right around the time I removed the watch from the box. I was convinced; the box had the ability to remove memories from reality. Later that afternoon, my next case came along and it ended up being my last.
My ex wife called on the phone to discuss an increase in alimony payments. She was blowing away the funds with her new boyfriend in most of the local bars; according to the private detective I hired to follow her. I fought off each attempt she made at increasing the money. She refused to let me see our son. She told me she was moving and I would hear from her in court. I hung up the phone and opened my desk drawer.
My wedding band still sat there, taunting me. Each time a female patient attempted a physical advance; I would wear the ring to avoid a harassment suit. It served me well on a few occasions. I picked it up and walked over to the memory box. I opened the box, placed it inside, and decided to destroy it the next day.
Destroying gold is not as easy as it seems. I tried different solutions each time and, using my cell phone, confirmed her existence and my failure. She told me she was calling the police and I resolved to stop. A television program flashed back into my memory of a couple making bands from their grandparent’s jewelry.
I jumped into my car and drove to the nearest jewelry store. An elderly man stood behind the counter. I told him I wanted to melt down the ring as a gift to my son. He took it from me, returned fifteen minutes later from the back room, and handed me a medallion of gold. I bought a chain, paid him for his services, completed the necklace by stringing the medallion onto the chain, and left.
The ride back took me over the river that ran through the center of town. The necklace burned in my hands and through my conscience. I stopped, opened the window, and through the necklace into the river. When I arrived back at the office, a squad car sat out front. I kept driving and decided to pay her a visit to see if the process worked.
The last address I had for her was an apartment complex about a mile away from my office. I rented the office before we were seeing each other and her place was a convenience at the time. I had not heard that she moved. The drive took all of eight minutes and, when I turned the corner to the block, her old Honda sat in the driveway. I circled and parked back at the cross street to give myself an element of surprise. I exited the car and walked past the front of the complex. Her window was open and I could hear a television outside. I went for the entrance.
The stairwell took another minute. I stopped in front of her door and the television blared a soap opera. I knocked, against my better judgment. The door opened and a young man stepped out. He wore no shirt and a ratty pair of jeans.
“Can I help you?” he asked. I stood in silence and watched his face.
“Yeah,” I said at the last second, “is..”
“Who’s there?” A female voice yelled from the living room. It hadn’t worked. Questions ran through my mind.
“Sorry, wrong apartment,” I said. The door shut and I left.
I made my way back to the office. The police cruiser was still sitting out front. I walked inside and up the hallway. Two officers flanked my door.
They found bodies. After the bodies, the wonderful investigators of the local police connected the common thread, my patients. The last two were detectives. They collected enough evidence to press charges. After a lengthy trial, here I sit, in jail, spending the rest of my days.
I have one thing up on all of them. This story, the one you are reading now, is a copy of one I placed in the box. Yes, I threw myself on the fire. Literally, as I found out from research, the fire will be my home in another two days. Evidence, after trial, is destroyed if deemed non important. By my count, at the end of the week, I will be gone, the empty mark of a distant memory.
So now I wait to see the world that I sent my patients into for their healing. I’ve seen them cry and laugh from it. I’ve seen them mired in depression and on a manic high. I’ve seen their delusions when the wires could not carry the images from the hidden world. Now I’ll rest and prepare myself for this is not an end, just a new beginning.
-Doctor Erwin McLaren, Ph D. Psychology
(Note found on the bed of cell 1435 the morning of the escape of Prisoner McLaren. He has yet to be found.)