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Time Heals Most Wounds · Original Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
Show rules for this event
A Brown Coffer
People all over the world say they have never seen God. But I've met him.

He is a box.

Six inches on every side and completely closed. He is made of cardboard, a darker shade of brown than most. Very light too, like picking up an empty box of Kleenex. Though his edges are a little worn, now. You can still see the stain from when I spilled milk on him. His one side is wrinkled and poofy; I had forgotten he was in the basement and it flooded. I was on vacation.

I didn't ask to meet him. That was the day I received a C in Quantum Mechanics, dropping my GPA below a three-point-five and losing Cum Laude for graduation. I suppose it's what you get for talking your professor out of a final exam and into a final project. It's too bad when standing at the gates of Hell you can't tell which side you're on. Best not to jump the wall.

I was cleaning off my desk and there he was, just sitting there.

At least, I'm assuming he was. I don't really remember; a box was a box and I went to trash it.

"Please don't throw me away."

That somehow made sense, you know, a box talking to me.

"Why."

"I don't want to be."

"What are you."

"I am God."

"...You're a box."

"Yes."

I thought for a moment, and asked, "Can you convince my professor to give me a B? ...Please."

"I cannot."

"Why not? You said you were God."

"Yes. But I am only a box."

I am only a box. Those words are my epitaph. Shave my head and carve them into my skull. Paint the walls. I love you, don't ask me favors, God help me I am only a box!

I never did throw him away.

He didn't like talking much. Or I didn't. Sometimes we'd go weeks or months without speaking. He would sit on my desk, inching backwards as stacks of books I bought but never read rose like untrimmed grass.

I liked to carry him around the house with me. Mostly after I moved out. Took me six years to do that. A college degree takes four years to attain. It takes a lifetime to mourn. I asked him for a job in my field. Anywhere, even the beaker closet at a lab. Please, always please.

"I am only a box."

Yes. He was. And I threw him across the room many times to prove it.

Oddly, he would never talk to others. And I hated that.

"Why don't you ever speak up when I tell my friends God is real? They roll their eyes and tell me about science."

"Science is good."

"But they don't have their science sitting with them on their desk."

"What could I say?"

"You're only a box."

"Yes."

For the first year in my apartment I prayed to him at night, usually silently but sometimes aloud. He never really said anything. In my next apartment I lost him for nearly three years, until I was fired from my job at the mall. He was easy to find after that.

He made a half decent door jam for my office door which never stayed open. He propped up windows, held papers down in the wind and made a nice stand for potted flowers.

I never cried to him but once, when Sally cheated on me after three years. By then my apartment was a house, I had shelves of unread books, and frequent back pain. Now, I see my cardiologist three times a year, and I read the nutritional facts on the sides of instant mashed potatoes.

God sits on my living room bookshelf, where he has the last five years.

Did you know? I thought once about cutting him open. What would be inside, who would step out? I held him in one trembling hand, a knife in the other. I thought he might say something like he once did: "Please don't cut me open. I don't want to be." But he never did. My parrot had lost its voice.

I often think about that moment, while I lay awake in the middle of the night, contemplating more sleeping aids. All I can hear is what sounds like scratchings at walls of paper, and a calm, even-keeled voice saying over and over, into infinity, "I am only a box, I am only a box."

I am only a box.
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#1 ·
· · >>horizon >>axis_of_rotation
Well, that was certainly a thing.

Nicely written, this. Weird and creepy and mildly depressing. I'm not entirely sure how it connects to the prompt, though, unless it's the whole my-life-is-crappy-and-it's-not-getting-better thing. I was somewhat deflated, also, that nothing really happened in the end. The box talks occasionally, then it doesn't, and life just goes on fading. (Is the metaphor that he's the box? I mean, he says a box in the end, and he's also empty and convinced he can't do much about anything.)

Still, as a light and haunting piece, I liked it.
#2 ·
· · >>axis_of_rotation
Yeah, I'm not sure I got this story. I didn't understand it on the first read through at all and on the second I'm leaning towards calling it a story on Schizophrenia, but told from the inside. It seems a very sad story overall but I don't understand the significance of the box to the MC and so I feel I've missed half the story by the end.

Don't have much else to say, this one bounced me.
#3 ·
· · >>axis_of_rotation
While the premise and the storyline are not my cup of tea... the story amazed me.

Well, I'm sorta biased... I had a similar experience, only with balloons... so call me crazy, but the balloons had a certain meaning behind them, as did this tiny box. Eventually they ran out of helium, and I had to say goodbye, but that's besides the point at hand.

What I'm saying is that any of us, have to find a little meaning, whether we like it or not. Life isn't about passing through, but some people unfortunately take that path. What this story demonstrated is that we need something to hang onto, like a picture of family, or in this case, a box.

A well played card, 'Twas a good read.
#4 · 1
· · >>axis_of_rotation
Minific rounds are always a little frustrating for feedback. It's very easy for the weight of what you write to approach the actual length of the story, and there are just so many things to discuss. So this round's feedback from me is gonna be paragraph-brief, sorry.

Now, I see my cardiologist three times a year, and I read the nutritional facts on the sides of instant mashed potatoes.

This is a fantastic line. Very J. Alfred Prufrock.

Like >>MonarchDodora I really get the sense that this story is structured to work on a metaphorical level. Unfortunately, instead of working in addition to the literal level, it feels like this only works as a metaphor. I mean, we the audience are never given any reason to associate God with the box other than the narrator's assertion. A cardboard box that does nothing other than occasionally interject snark really doesn't feel like the traditional conception of "God" — except perhaps insofar as we take it as a metaphor for the narrator's approach to religiosity, something that's nominally there (in church on the weekends) and in practice unimportant, and if that's the case then the box isn't God at all but a reflection of the narrator's self and values. That gave the whole thing sort of an absurd feeling for me and kept me from really connecting with whatever metaphor was intended.

I feel about this kind of like I felt about my own Writeoff entry last round, the one which kept writing about Spike from different points of view: there's a solid story underneath it but the particular approach you're using feels like it's getting in the way. I like a lot of the prose. Probably will end up middle-slate.

Tier: Almost There
#5 ·
· · >>TitaniumDragon >>axis_of_rotation
I think I see what you were going for here. The narrator clearly treats the box exactly how some people treat God—only looking for him when times are tough, generally ignoring him the rest of the time, and so forth.

But while it works decently as a metaphor, it doesn't really make for much of a story. And within the story, there's no clear reason why he or we should accept that the box is God. Though I suppose that might have been an intentional part of your metaphor.

So basically, author, this makes an interesting enough treatise on what you believe about God, but a much less interesting story.
#6 ·
· · >>Leo >>axis_of_rotation
*skipping other reviews*

I am more or less at a loss as to what to make of this. At first I thought we were working on Schrodinger's Cat rules, with god maybe, or maybe not being in the box. The that our poor protagonist has gone around the bend, due to too many bad things (wounds) to his psyche during his life. wounds which never quite heal. But he seems to have made it through his life at least marginally successfully.... Mostly I just find this odd...

*reading other reviews*

Hmmmm... Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna have to stick with my pre-other-reviews comments. I can buy the whole 'metaphor for God' thing (though hey, at least his god is useful as a doorstop and book stand and whatnot!) but this still just leaves me scratching my head. Sorry!
#7 ·
· · >>axis_of_rotation
I was uncertain how graduating with a 3.4 in a scientific field was akin to "standing at the gates of Hell". Cum Laude is nice, but it isn't a tremendous thing that affects your prospects when you can list your GPA in your resume for a starting position.

If your final project was in Quantum Mechanics, then you either majored or minored in physics, which means you should have had no difficulty finding a high-paying job. Those two things really confused me. You should have made it more severe, like missing graduating entirely from debt.

In my next apartment I lost him for nearly three years, until I was fired from my job at the mall. He was easy to find after that.


This is the part that made me certain I was reading allegory. Splendid.
#8 ·
·
EDIT: I can't help but think of that song by The Lonely Island, which I suppose is incredibly sacrilegious. Pity me.
#9 · 1
· · >>axis_of_rotation
I have not much to add to what the others said, except maybe a little bit of a different interpretation.

Copious spoilers ahead, even if maybe at this point it isn't important anymore.

This was not a story about finding God, this was a story about being incapable to cope with a failure. Everyone has a different tolerance to failures, some manage them better than others, and some are haunted by something that may seem minor to everybody else. In this case we have what is for many a relative minor failure (failing the project and losing the Cum Laude, it is hard but for most not life-ruining) which hits the MC so hard that he can't cope with it. Enter his vision of God in a Cardbox, not a metaphor for religion but for his incapability to achieve a deep comprehension of Quantum Mechanics, made solid in a form resembling the most known Gedankenexperiment of that specific subject.

And the failure haunts the MC for the rest of his life, mirrored in his incapability to find a job at the level of his degree or to keep a certain stability, in his piles of never read books or in his apartments. And each time he fails again the box talks, bringing him back to what he feels, not sure if he is conscious about it, the root of all his failings, and the wound time doesn't heal.

Or I have completely misread it.

Edit: I loved the story.
#10 ·
· · >>axis_of_rotation
I can relate to >>TheCyanRecluse here. It's not bad, just odd. The absurdity of the premise has its own sort of appeal, I guess. Telling the main character's life was alright. Overall I'm still underwhelmed, though that might not do the story justice because I apparently don't get the deeper meaning (assuming there is any).

The style is interesting, with some tasteful use of repetition which I liked.
#11 ·
· · >>axis_of_rotation
I have to say I don’t really get the point of this story. I feel like this story was going for something fairly vast, but I felt kind of left out by it. Why does he think God is the box (or is in the box)? It doesn’t seem to make much sense, really. I mean, I guess there’s >>The_Letter_J’s view, which isn’t wrong (and I suppose you could read it like that, saying that God doesn’t really exist, and you’re crazy to believe in him) but that feels a little… I dunno. On the nose? Not sure what message it is conveying to an audience not already receptive to that message.
#12 · 2
· · >>Orbiting_kettle
A little late here, but congrats LiseEclaire, Flutterpriest and horizon! ...Dorks.

>>MonarchDodora >>billymorph >>PinoyPony >>The_Letter_J >>horizon >>TheCyanRecluse >>Trick_Question >>Orbiting_kettle >>Leo >>TitaniumDragon
Thanks for all the thoughtful reviews guys! Don't have much time here so I'll try to be quick.

I also want to preface this by saying I don't wish to offend anyone. Retrospectives are about revealing the birthplace of a story, so that's only what I wish to do. Also, you're free to read whatever interpretation you want. Here is what I intended.

For me, "A Brown Coffer" is, well, a tragedy. Admittedly, there is no "wound". It was born out of thinking about time, which always makes me think of infinity, which leads me to God, and how well I know or don't know him, and how others know and conceive of him. Namely, I believe many people have an... inaccurate imagining of (the Christian) God, both "believers" and "non-believers". The idea sprung from an old (for me) metaphor: putting God in a box.

The story is specified to Christians, but invites anyone to consider how they think about God. I wanted to comment on what I think is the tragedy of many Christian lives: their understanding of God. Which is, in my totally not offensive opinion, often restrictive, highly depersonalizing, unemotional, and generally not much better than a cardboard box. Their relationship to him isn't that much different either (I say that as the worst of friends). I include in this a wider range of people than you might think.

As many of you correctly pointed out, the box does not do much to prove it is God, and narratively speaking this is a problem. But...it's also the point. For me, the core conflict is between the narrator's sense (and desire) that God ought to be more, and his lack of courage and ignorance of how to get that. He tries, but fails because he never approaches him as anything other than a box. The result is increasing hopelessness and depression. He wants to have a relationship with God, but has no idea how. He thinks he does, though.

This is, generally, what I wanted to convey. The execution has lots and lots of problems, however. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I wish I had more time to respond to specific comments, but suffice it to say, I appreciated and enjoyed every word :D
#13 ·
· · >>axis_of_rotation
>>axis_of_rotation
So I was completely off in my understanding. I honestly don't know what you could have done to make me, specifically, understand it better short of spelling it out, which would have been fatal for the story (in the post-mortem it is fine IMHO).

Oh, well, I like the story a lot anyway.
#14 ·
·
>>Orbiting_kettle
Actually kettle, I loved your review. You near put me to shame with it :D I totally wanted to say "Er, yeah! That's exactly what I meant, yup! See how smart I am?" But alas.