Through a grin of widely spaced brown rimmed teeth she asked if there was anything I was interested in- all her own work, mostly, reasonably priced, considering, and each one unique. Except for the little chokers, perhaps, but, well...they're all the rage with the girls. Apparently. I made a vague grunt of agreement, and poked at embroidered cushions with the careless ease of the determined non shopper. I spent some time examinining a small wooden box, ornamented with roughly carved flowers and vague spiral like indentations. Unable to find the expected "Made in Indonesia" tag or a price, I fiddled unsuccessfully with the latch, but only managed to break my nails attempting to open it.
Eventually the vendor took pity on me, and explained that it was a 'Box of Love'. And it wasn't supposed to open,though you probably could. Which would completely ruin the point of not opening it (Here I recieved the withering glare of the spiritually enlightned in contact with a soulless drone. I get these a lot.)
The shameless gimmikry of the thing fascinated me. I foolishly asked how
much they cost,and before I had time to ponder how idiotic this was the
suddenly cheerful artisan had bundled the small useless block in blue tissue
paper, enthusiastically cutting the stickytape with her teeth.
I opened my mouth to protest, played out the discussion in my mind, and
decided the bother wasn't worth $11.95. Annoyed but civil I declined to take
the womans card and walked home without stopping again. There I put my
unwanted purchase into a drawer until I could think of something to do with
it.
To be honest, I'm not one of those people who enjoys searching for exactly which gift to get someone, nor paying the usually inflated prices in overairconditioned shopping centres this generally entails. When a set of circumstances loomed where such tokens of affection are expected, I gave my accidentally aquired gift to the sort of person such things are designed for. To my relief the response seemed to indicate my gift was adequate. After a polite period in pride of place on a small coffee table as a mildly successful conversation piece (I'm not sure forced smiles and comments on how sweet I am count as conversation) the beloved box was supplanted by a set of russian dolls brought back by some relative from overseas. Sitting on a undusted shelf, with half read books and broken souveniers it watched, benificently. "Every look,every statement of cloying emotion," it smirked,"I am the keeper of the key,I hold you together" As if it had anything to do with the emotional entanglements we happened to be caught up in. Of course I'm pretty certain I'm the only one who even remembered the thing existed.
But, no matter what people tell themselves, there is no promise that can not one day be broken, and no bond that will not eventually strain from fatigue. Naturally my people claim it was obvious from the start and there was nothing I could do, but it's very easy to blame someone you don't know, and it often seems to me that we are all responsible for everything, or perhaps none of us are. Regardless, with all the unpleaseantness that is the flipside of too much pleasure, back came my cards, my poems, my half eaten chocolates, and my box.
Like the bloated corpse of an accidentally exhumed pet it leered at me with horrendous familiarity. What use had I for a unwanted expression of feelings I didn't have? For years or months or maybe days it stayed on top of my wardrobe with the rest, almost forgotten,until in an uncharecteristic fit of cleanliness I decided to throw out all the useless memoribilia I had lying around,to make room for newer and more important things. There, under decade old christmas cards, I rediscovered it, smelling of dust, stale cocoa, and cockroaches.
Possessed with some odd combination of resentment and curiosity, I shook it but heard nothing. But why not open it? There is no sacrelige in destroying a symbol if what it represents is long dead, with noone left who cares. I took my letter opener, which is stupidly sharp, and poked gingerly at the latch, which fell off leaving a thin veneer of cheap glue. Undeterred, I tried to lever the top from the lid, but could barely get the blade into the thin gap. Aiming carefully,I tried to hit where the latch had been, but jarred my hand and only broke off a few small splinters. Not willing to be beaten I struck again and again, leaving red marks on my palms which began to ache. Through a combination of impatience and incompetance, I managed to chip off much of the edges and eventually, to cut my finger rather badly. Sucking on the dying salty blood, I looked, peturbed, at the much dented memory of a jarrah block. At where the pretence of an opening had been chipped away to show the solid and impermeable interior.
If there was any love in that box, it was beyond my power to get at it, and if it was useless when I bought it, there was certainly nothing for me now in a small broken chunk of wood.
For a while I stared blankly at my hands, at the strangely inorganic creases the sharp corners had shaped in my palms and thought of nothing. But what point is there in idle reflection? I picked up what was left of the box and threw it as hard as I could into my bin, where it sank out of site under all the paper. Doing this I forced a long brittle splinter into my swollen hand, and although I got most of it out when I noticed it hours later, a small piece of handcrafted rubbish sits inside, under my skin, and from time to time it aches.