Soul Story 1 : In A Box By The Ocean At The End Of The World

On Tuesday,

I went to see a shaman in Queens.

He gave me a slip of paper with a ten-digit phone number and five words written across the top.

The end of the world.

I called the number.

A childlike voice answered and began speaking to me.

All it said was,

Where are you?

Where have you been?

The next day a van appeared at my apartment building to pick me up.

So I got in.

Not feeling like I had any place left to go.

No place left to exist within.

I fell asleep on the ride.

When I finally arrived at the destination,

The sun had already begun to set.

We were by the ocean.

Looking red in the light reflecting from the falling sun,

I thought it to be the blood of the world.

The pulse of God.

Being here,

It truly felt like a place one would picture when thinking about what one of the world's ends must look like.

A drop-off from existence.

A corner away from forever.

Realistically,

It could have been just a beach off the coast of Maine.

Or a place fifty minutes outside the city in upstate New York,

But even so,

I had a feeling this was not a place of human perception and presence.

But of a greater,

More beautiful,

Fraud.

My driver,

A man with a rough complexion and enigmatic eyes,

Led me down to the shore where a row of perfectly square boxes was lined up against the amalgamation of sand and waves.

All identical.

We kept walking until he stopped me at one.

Then he knelt down and opened the lid,

Where there was a window facing upward,

And said,

You will live here now.

So I got in the box.

Maybe it would have been smarter to ask what this was,

Or how it would be fed while in the confines of such a little box,

But I didn't say anything like that.

As he closed the lid,

All I could say was,

Please,

Don't tell anyone I'm here.

I sat in the box for what could have been mere minutes,

Or entire days.

Time didn't seem to pass here.

Hunger did not exist,

And sight was scarcely gone.

My only vision came when I looked up and could see the sky.

This is how I knew whether it was night or day.

But I rarely felt a yearning to look up,

So I knew little of the life that existed in the sky.

I was more comfortable being in the shadows of the interior box,

Where the only thing to feel was the waves of water crashing against its exterior.

This feeling felt good.

Safe.

Because it was as if the water's touch was being passed on to me by the box itself,

Where the box could feel it first before transferring the touch to me.

It was the hit without the ache.

Sometimes I wondered if there were people passing by,

Just out of the box's perception,

For if I looked up to view the sunlit sky just at the right moment,

I swore I could see eyes.

What were these eyes?

Could God's eyes be the same as mine?

Maybe that's how he sees,

I decided,

Through the eyes of the ones who wonder.

I remained this way until one day I heard a voice.

Only I could not see where it was coming from.

Hello?

It called out to me.

It must have repeated its call a few more times before I decided to respond.

Is someone there?

I questioned hesitantly.

Yes,

I am here.

Where are you?

I'm in a box by the ocean.

Where are you?

I'm in a box by the ocean,

Too.

I guess we must be near each other.

I have been calling out for ages.

I started to believe that there was no one else who could possibly be here.

But then you answered me.

No,

I am here.

You aren't the only one.

I'm glad you heard me.

Now I don't feel so alone.

I stopped answering after this reply and the voice didn't call out again.

I guess I was pleased to provide this mysterious being with the comfort of a companion.

But I would have instantly traded that feeling for the peace of being completely alone.

For as long as I could remember,

I had felt the need to give pieces of myself to others.

And I didn't want to do that anymore.

That's why I was here,

I discerned.

To preserve my last piece before it could be stolen from me.

At least,

That's what the shaman had told me.

He said that I had broken myself into too many pieces for the benefit of others.

To the point where I had become a walking bender of my own self.

Handing pieces of myself out for free while receiving nothing in return.

It had gotten so bad that now,

I only had one piece of myself left to hold on to.

I had been living a life conditional on the needs and wants of others.

Though,

I didn't feel the strain.

Because it was what I was accustomed to doing.

Which may be why I didn't notice the problem.

Until I was almost gone.

The pain of tearing parts of myself off for others soothed my fears.

Less for me to deal with.

Yet,

I could never get anyone to stay.

At that moment,

I wanted to go back to before there was the space that I took.

Before there was a box for me to sit in.

All of a sudden,

I was distracted by a wave crashing onto the window of my box.

Water flushed over all of its sides.

I could feel the fluidity arising within me as my box was submerged in the waters of discovery.

A wave.

A touch of the earth itself.

As if to say,

You shall no longer be seen.

I thought that,

Perhaps,

This might truly be it.

My last moment of presence on earth's land.

But then the water cleared and the sky appeared once again.

Hanging above the box in which I had been embedded,

I saw the moon in the middle of a placid night sky.

It was curved and scintillating as a haze passed over its luminescent smile.

Sending a caress onto my box as a reminder of the permanence of its company.

A touch that was not rooted in the pleasure of feeling,

But in the countenance of belonging.

The first time I had been touched by a partner,

It felt special and exciting.

But I found that the more touches I gave away,

The less significant they became.

Until I no longer felt consolation,

But detachment from affection as a whole.

How could they walk away with a piece of me attached to their body?

It even made them feel closer to me doing it.

Wearing a piece of me that I could no longer have.

They were secure,

While I was left falling apart.

My first love had taken my hands,

The next my breasts,

And the last my feet to stand on.

I gave my pieces to them because I believed I did not know how to be alone.

Now I can see that I did not know how to be surrounded either.

A few weeks later,

The voice echoed again.

Hello?

Are you still there?

I'm still here.

I spoke up again.

Where have you been?

In my box.

I have nowhere else to go.

You could stand up and leave.

I don't have the key.

The boxes don't lock.

You can just stand up.

Are you still in yours?

I don't know.

I guess I like it here.

But I thought you were lonely.

I am.

But I think loneliness is better than worthlessness.

At least here I have the purpose of filling my box.

It would be empty without me.

I couldn't imagine another person being fragile enough to enter a box,

But then again,

The voice existed and it sounded close by.

Here was a place where people ended up in order to be alone.

But for what reason did we decide to stay?

I did not yet know.

Even for myself.

I could not logically reason why I had decided to remain.

Hearing the call,

I felt a necessity to enter.

A decision made without a thought.

My wits were absent from the action.

Do you think all the boxes have people in them?

I questioned.

I'm not sure.

You're the only one who has ever responded to me.

But that doesn't mean they're not there.

Maybe they just don't want to talk.

I doubt anyone who agreed to live here wants to talk to other people.

You did.

You answered my call.

In this statement,

Articulating something so instinctual inside of me,

Something that had become ingrained in my every sense of being,

I heard the voice not as another,

But as myself.

I would love.

They would call.

And I would answer their call.

I couldn't help it.

There was never a thought of ignoring this beckoning.

Even if it might be delayed once and again.

I couldn't decline connections summoning song.

Yet here,

This voice did not evoke in me a requirement to answer.

More a yearning to be remembered.

To be heard.

I answered it because it spoke to me without scorn.

It only desired to be heard by me.

And suddenly,

I craved a deeper knowing of this other being past the voice with which I was conversing.

I probed.

I'm box 117.

No,

Who are you really?

I'm not sure I can remember.

Who are you?

It's not important.

Is it not?

I truly didn't feel as though it was.

The voice knew me as my voice,

Not the self I had come to know throughout my past.

A tranquil shelter from my understanding.

The voice did not need to know who I was.

All it needed was to feel what was resonating from within me.

It won't be important soon anyways.

I'm down to my final piece and it's starting to break.

So I doubt I will be myself much longer.

I told the voice.

Take my spine piece.

Then you can glue it back together.

You don't need it for yourself.

I could not believe someone would offer one of their own pieces to me for keeps.

We all need things.

I feel okay giving you this piece of me because you can use it to fuel your soul.

My soul.

How could the voice see I had one?

Was it in the sky looking down on me?

Or maybe it was in my heart.

Or maybe could it see this part of me without looking at all?

Could the voice hear my heart?

Is that what it is I asked it?

Isn't it?

I thought that's why they send us here.

To relinquish our spoiled souls.

In one way or another we have spoiled them for ourselves which is why we must lay here.

In eternal providence before we vanish for good.

I wondered what had happened to this stranger's soul to put them in a box.

Could anyone ever do something so bad to deserve it?

Some might I suppose.

But they would not be the type to willingly shut themselves into boxes.

No.

The people who stay in boxes are ones afraid of being in control.

Of living in a world that they cannot live up to.

People create the distance and isolation which they feel inside.

Did I want to lose my soul?

I didn't think so.

More so I think I wanted to lose my heart so that I could stop being controlled by emotion over logic.

Still aren't heart and soul if not conjoined?

Fragments of the same whole?

I can't take a piece from you.

Why not?

We are all held up by pieces that were not originally ours.

Who's to say if it is truly mine?

We are running out of time.

What do you mean time?

I hadn't felt a sense of time since arriving here.

Come to think of it I did not know of it or notice its movement at all.

Nothing moved here.

Nothing except the waves.

However all of a sudden I felt my environment starting to catch up.

We only get so much time here before they release our boxes into the ocean.

I don't want your box to sink,

The voice answered me.

It is right,

I thought.

I had been allowing myself to sink.

But this time I did not want to drown.

All of my life I had let the water of my heart pour into my box and now it was full.

I could no longer pour it out.

I had to start taking some of it in.

I can't be touched.

Time is getting too small.

Open your window.

You can get out.

But how will I find you once it's open?

Run along the shoreline.

You will know which one is mine.

I looked up out of my closed window for what would be the last time.

What I saw wasn't anything special.

It was only the clouds perching in the sky,

Just as they always had been.

I put my hands to the glass and smashed through its barrier,

Allowing myself to press open the lid.

The enclosure was now open and I stood up in the box.

The sand hit me like a knife to the chest.

It pained me to look up so I decided to focus on looking forward.

I saw the sand as the waves rushed up onto its surface and I gazed at the clear water filling the ocean.

At that moment,

I felt as though I had been living just outside of the world's vision.

And that I was now in the eye of the world.

Standing in its perimia,

A pupil on its saturated surface.

And the world was crying.

I tried to raise my head and look around,

But it was hard to see.

I'm here!

I'm here!

Where are you?

Can you hear me?

I was calling out to the voice.

Yes,

I am here!

Come towards me!

It responded quickly and I followed the sound.

Automatically,

I began to run.

Something that had become uncharacteristic throughout the majority of my life.

I seldom found myself running toward anything.

Because I would rather run away from it.

Yet,

As the vibrations of sound hit my eardrums,

I was pulled forward by the purification of its waves.

I could not say how long I continued to run because it did not feel like running.

It was as if I had been floating in the orbit of an energetic field belonging solely to the voice.

This strange world and myself.

I was not in control and yet,

I was not scared.

I was going to retrieve the piece that would hold all of my broken pieces together.

In the running,

I realized no part of you is more important than another.

But I came to know that people had two kinds of parts.

Parts that are our true light.

And defensive parts that keep that light away from our hearts.

This is what makes up what we are.

Are you here?

It shouted out to me.

This time the voice resounded loudly and clearly in my brain,

Like a chime ringing from the inside of my skull.

I knew I had found it.

Everything stopped and I looked down to see the box.

Is this you?

I put my hands down on its edges.

They were covered in small droplets of pure water.

It must have been raining while I was running and I hadn't noticed.

It is!

The voice reverberated.

Are you there?

I can't see you.

I can't see you.

Look in my window.

Following the words,

I looked down into the glass.

Though what I saw was not what I had been expecting to encounter.

Instead of a body of another living thing,

I saw what I remembered to be my own face reflecting back at me,

As if inside of a mirror.

There is something wrong with your window.

I can't see in.

It is not wrong.

What you see is true.

The biggest thing in life is life.

Stop searching for more and look at who you are.

A living being.

Being seen by more life doesn't increase the size of a light.

Only one person's eyes matter.

The eyes of the great light.

But how will I obtain your spine piece?

My reflection disappeared.

Had it been me all along?

I attempted to smash through the glass,

But it would not break.

What was going on?

I started to hyperventilate.

I must be at the wrong box,

I thought to myself.

Or maybe just crazy.

You are not crazy.

A different voice now faintly spoke to me.

You have found your window.

I looked around to see where it was coming from.

When I could finally lift my head from looking down at the box,

I saw the driver who had picked me up,

Standing in the dunes a few yards away.

Sand blowing over his face,

His figure was difficult to make out at first.

But I knew who he was.

He brought me here.

Now it was time to go back.

So I walked toward him,

Breathing in the scent of the waves.

The aroma was comprised of the accumulation of everything I had become.

And everything I was leaving behind.

And as I arrived at his side,

I spoke five words back.

I'm ready to go,

Please.

He did not reply.

He only held out his hand as I gave him my final piece.

My heart.

After I handed it to him,

He closed it tightly in his hand until it fully evaporated.

Disappearing into the wind.

Becoming one with the sand.

Am I going to die now?

You are finally alive.

Now I no longer had anything of myself left to give.

All that remained was the presence of my own being.

Not the pieces that anyone wanted to take.

But a person.

Standing in the ache.

The drive back happened in what felt like an instant.

One minute I got in the driver's vehicle.

The next I was home.

And he was gone.

That is all I can remember from the journey.

When I finally got back to my apartment,

I opened my computer to see the date.

Only 40 minutes had passed since I had left.

How could that be?

I conclude that,

Perhaps,

Time does not move in all things.

For a matter of moments,

I had existed in the distance between the measures of time.

Where we are not one person,

But all the same.

And nothing truly lives,

Except for the water beating on our boxes.