Short Story: What's in the Box?

I’ve always been proud of my woodworking. Ever since I made that cute little jewelry box my sophomore year of high school. Even possessive of it. I wouldn’t like other kids poking or prodding at it. I don’t think I ever outgrew any of that unfortunately. Sure, when I make things for others it’s fine but I just feel different about something I build to put in my home.

Over the years, though, stuff inevitably comes apart, which is understandable since I made a lot of things when I was a lot younger and less experienced, but I just didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. One day, a chair I had worked on for days during my freshman year of college had a leg that fell off. It honestly shook me up a little. I didn’t think much of it, just that I was evidently way too attached to a piece of furniture.

I never thought much about my past, mainly because I don’t remember much. However, when the top shelf of the shelving unit I made my senior year of high school fell I had a really strange experience. It was a very vague, yet extremely painful memory. Though I didn’t exactly know what happened in that memory, it was able to evoke a very visceral reaction from me. I was angry, sad, ashamed, and scared, and I didn’t even know why. 

I wanted to take my anger out on something and I figured I should throw out the shelving unit anyway. After taking everything off of it, I took it out to my backyard with a hammer. I started to swing, and with every impact the memory became more clear, and eventually turned into multiple memories. I didn’t feel better, a lot worse in fact. 

In what felt like a rage induced trance, I grabbed everything I built in my house, the chair, a desk, a nightstand, and started smashing. With every explosion of wood chips more pain would unlock from my past. After everything was a pile of planks and wood dust, I still wasn’t fulfilled, I couldn’t start putting the pieces together. I wanted to know what was causing me this anguish.

I went to the attic and looked through every old, dusty, forgotten box, hoping to find answers. I was sobbing at this point. Desperate to know why someone would do that to a child, for four years. How did I let myself be the victim and how did I allow myself to forget it? The shame I felt was more overwhelming than any other emotion. I fell to the ground in defeat, the memories still weren’t complete. Then, I saw on the ground that cute little jewelry box. Inside were the answers I had been looking for.

Finally posting again! Hope you like this one. I tried to play with the climax and build up of the realization of what happened. I also tried to play with subtext and having to infer something. Though, sometimes I felt as though it came across as lazy, but I think the finished product was okay. I liked the connection between the physical and the mental in this story. Like breaking open a piece of furniture broke open a piece of the subconscious. Well, hopefully I can get back to a more consistent schedule, I have many stories in the works. Thanks for reading!