The Box

The Box
“When you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss also gaze into you.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
INSIDE-OUTSIDE
In a cozy afternoon, sunshine pours on the desk through layers and layers of leaves. I am bored, I have no other entertainment except watching a young man holds a pen between the index finger and middle finger, knocking the table in a rhythm of “I Will Survive”. There are only two sentences on the screen of the Laptop. By the speed of his writing right now, he’s not going to finish that essay before 8:30 pm, the sunset. This young man, Babazuka, decides to find something that can urge himself to focus. He pulled out a carbon fiber tripod from under the bed and locked his camera onto it.

“Click.”
He hit the record button and sit back to the front of the keyboard. Babazuka found that it is a great pleasure to watch the time-lapse after he wrote a long essay. The camera is recording at one frame per second and it will playback at 60 frames per second which means the final video will be a sixty times faster forward video. And the long exposure time will give a beautiful motion blur, a feeling of time flowing.

Babazuka feels like he is wasting time to write the essay. he doesn’t think the word he wrote will count as a story. It is more like a diary. The story is actually hard. People always say that you can use your imagination to write. But imagination is basic on the reality that people sense before. Babazuka keeps wonder: Is that possible that the image inside of people’s minds actually exists? Do people combine irrelevant things together and call it creative? Babazuka just can’t figure out the answer to those questions, or those questions are meant to be unanswered? He looks like the sculpture “The Thinker” while he thinking of those questions.

Without any notice, the white-yellow sunshine shift to the left by one inch. Babazuka’s finger is flying on the keyboard. He said. “Ok, the first page is done, nine more to go.” and he pats his cheeks softly twice. However, Babazuka stop. His stream of ideas was cut off. He couldn't write anything that can be count as a story. I understand that art comes from life, but how could he write a story without going through enough life experience. He such an ordinary man that he was born in a small happy family. His father is an office worker and gets paid at an average salary. And his mother has a little cake shop that doing just fine, most of the customers are either neighbors or friends. Their living is almost like clockwork. Father goes the work at nine in the morning and mom’s store opens at six-thirty in the morning. Babazuka seldom goes out and plays with his friend. In fact, I don’t think he has any friends at all.

Babazuka mumbles to himself: “This is ridiculous, How am I suppose to write such a long story.” He closes the lid of the laptop as fast as he can. He slides his whole body onto his chair until the chair is touching his back. All of sudden, he pushes himself up and goes over to his two-door cabinet, take a deep breath, opens the door slowly as they were made of heavy stone, even though it’s made of light plywood. Babazuka takes out a big paper bag. He jogs back to the table. And he lay the bag onto his leg, lifts out a translucent glass cube from the paper bag.

OUTSIDE-INSIDE
I can’t see what thing exactly inside that box that Babazuka is holding. But it is glowing weak white-yellow light. Babazuka stares at the box, giggle from time to time. I wonder doesn’t he have an essay due tonight? Why isn’t he in any rush? I am so curious about what inside that box.
The sunshine just flash to the right an inch, like the secondhand of an analog clock, the secondhand that moves second to second, but there is no continuity between this second and last second, it just skips through. Babazuka takes a deep breath, glance his watch, and sink back into the box again.

Babazuka starts to talk to the box.
He said: “Who am I? It doesn’t matter. I’m tried to find something to write about.” He seems to feel sorry for something.
He replied: “I here just for some writing material. I don’t really want to interrupt you.”
“Don’t be mad, everything is going to be alright. So, please be yourself, keep being normal, and stop yelling at me. I wasn’t the one who trapped you here.” Babazuka waves his hand over the top of the box with a fake smile.

“Hey, Hey. Stop it. it is completely unnecessary. Ok?” His said and faces are as claim as the sea before the storm.
“What are you doing?!” Babazuka hammered the table with his fist and talks toward the box. The sound it makes shocked me. He stands up and grabs a bottle of water, pours it on a pair of white gloves, which have black paint on the palm area.
In a few minutes, the color of the box in his hand started to alter, white-yellow rapidly turns into orange-red, bright red. Babazuka picks up a box like it weighs nothing and starts shaking the box like mixing a cocktail. White smoke started to erupt from gloves, due to the heat, I guess, making a sound of a fresh steak got thrown on a hot pan full of Olive oil. Then, he starts to shake the box, shake it in a rhythm of “sha, su sha, su shasha”. After a couple of iteration, the color of the box starts diminishing and stops glowing, gradually become a dark box. The color is so dark that, in my eyes, that part of space just got cropped out. In another word, it looks like a square black hole.

Babazuka shoves the cube back into that paper bag carefully and turn back and opens up his laptop. His hand is flying on the keyboard once again. The sunshine moves to the left on the table, but this time, it moves in a smooth way and reached the small gyro on the front board of Babazuka’s bed.
Time went quickly. It’s the afternoon already. I was trapped in this dorm. I can’t remember how long have I been trapped here. This room has no door and an unbreakable window. I don’t have the memory of yesterday, and I don’t know what got me in here, but I have a very clear purpose, write a story, a ten-page story. But how could I write a story without going through enough life experience? Is that possible that the image inside of people’s minds actually exists…

The white-yellow sunshine reaches my arm on the table. I start to scratch my head, throw things all over the place. I can’t stop wonder and yell in my head:
Who kept me here?
Why kept me?
What is all this for?
Maybe I can burn this place.
Ten minutes later, I gather every flammable item into the center, pile like a mini mountain. I'm surprise that I could find a lighter and some gasoline in this room. Why? it doesn’t matter.

The lighter jumps on the mountain from my hands. I thought: this is the end. I am going to be free, soon.
“sha, su sha, su shasha”
OUTSIDE-OUTSIDE
In a cozy afternoon, sunshine pours on the desk through layers and layers of leaves...