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TWO BOXES (short Story)


“Pick one child, before I grow old.”

The little girl’s eyes flickered back and forth between the two objects, and her tiny white palms clenching and unclenching against the white fabric of her dress. But neither object seemed to hold more interest for her than the other.

“Would you like me to pick one for you?” the old woman asked gently, sensing the struggle.

“No,” the girl replied, not looking away from her task.

The woman sighed and shook her head. She would just have to wait, this was an important decision after all, it wasn’t the kind of thing someone else could decide for her.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the girl reached out her tiny hands and wrapped her fingers around both objects, quickly pulling them close to her chest. The old woman was horrified.

“What are you doing child? Aren’t you going to pick one?”

“Why can’t I have both?” the girl said in response, glancing pointedly at the white wicker box and the black lacquered box in her possession.

“Of course you can’t have both! Don’t be ridiculous!”

The older woman’s round face had turned red and sweaty, and the little girl giggled a little under her breath, taking a step backwards.

“Why not?” she pouted.

“You just can’t! You can either choose the black box and be the villain, or you can choose the white box and be the hero. You only have one soul; you can’t put it in both boxes.”

“How come? I can be vesateeel,” the girl said, clutching the boxes even closer to her chest.

“Versatile,” the woman corrected automatically, shaking her head, “This will be your first birth, perhaps it would be easier for you if you were put into the white box. Come here, I’ll open it for you, the lock can be tricky.”

“No! I want to be both! Just take my soul and rip it in half, put one half in the white box and the other half in the black box, see? Easy.”

“I think that sounds like an interesting idea,” a voice intoned from above.

“Thank you daddy!” the child shouted at the ceiling’s direction, waving her free arm frantically at the man she couldn’t see.

“What is the meaning of this father?” the older woman asked the same invisible presence.

“Without villains there can be no heroes, and without heroes there can be no villains. They are both necessary in order to create a sense of balance, because without balance there is only chaos.”

“Yes, I know father, but wouldn’t being both upset the balance!?” she said, lifting her arms imploringly towards the ceiling.

The voice chuckled, “Quite the opposite child, the girl will be, in fact, a very balanced human being. Light and dark. It is good that she is so innovative.”

The girl’s smile grew even wider at the praise, and she glanced back at the older woman, “See?” she said, “I’m inavertive.”

“Innovative,” the woman said with a long sigh, and after a moment’s thought crooked a finger in the girl’s direction.

“Come here child, split your soul and be born for the first time.”

The girl’s smile immediately faded, her expression suddenly hesitant. The old woman pressed a hand to her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to summon the last of her patience.

“What is it now child?”

“D-does it hurt?”

“Do you mean the soul splitting? I’m sure it doesn’t child, you know that souls aren’t connected to the nervous system.”

The girl shook her head, “No, I meant, does it hurt to be born?”

The old woman smiled with sudden understanding, “Nobody remembers the birth. Nor the life, because as soon as one dies and comes back here, all the details are lost, all that is remembered is that the life was lived, that the event existed. Even I, through all the millions of lives I have lived, cannot remember a single name that I possessed, a single person that has loved me, or hated me.”

“But does it hurt?” the girl asked again, her eyes rimmed with tears. The older woman laughed a little, and shook her head.

“Of course not.”