I have a soul trapped in a box. It isn’t my soul, of course. I don’t know whose soul it is. That’s the point. I traded my own, you see, and got this one in its place.
You don’t believe me. Oh, no, you needn’t apologize. You needn’t protest. I wouldn’t believe me, either, if it weren’t for this wooden box on my dresser, and the matter of my own missing soul.
Which box, you ask? I do have quite a collection, don’t I? I’ve always enjoyed boxes. This one’s a puzzle box, you see? But that’s not the one you’re interested in. This is the one. It doesn’t look like much, does it? It’s rather ragged, really. Handmade, of course, though it wouldn’t have to be. Almost any object will do, or so I’ve been told.
Open it? Yes, if you’d like. The soul can’t escape. It’s bound to the wood, I think, or maybe to the painting on the lid. I’m not sure how it works. I didn’t bind it myself, you know.
Well, that is an interesting question. I really have no idea. I’m sure most people would say the devil was involved, but I don’t know that I believe in the devil, even now.
All I can tell you is that on a Friday morning not long ago, I found the most extraordinary doll. She was made of porcelain, very old, in a pink satin dress, and the skirt was a dusting-brush. I don’t collect dolls, of course. I collect boxes. But she called to me. She called to me in a way that I recognize now as suspicious. I didn’t recognize it then, though, and so I purchased her, or perhaps she was given to me. I thought I paid for her, but no money changed hands. I brought her home, and placed her here, on the dresser, just where I keep the soul-box now. I even used her to dust the boxes sometimes. I was doing that the day I dropped her. Oh, she didn’t break, but when she fell to the floor I felt… Something. I felt…
Well, yes. That’s it exactly. I felt as though I’d fallen. The room spun around me and for a moment, I thought I was looking up at myself from a vantage on the floor.
I can’t say I was very surprised when she disappeared a few days later. I thought at first someone had broken in, but a burglar would have taken more than my little porcelain doll. That space on the dresser was empty for months, and I drifted through my days in a fog. Nothing reached me, nothing touched me. I found myself sleeping a great deal, unable to enjoy the simplest pleasures. I hardly tasted my food. And then, on a desperate visit to the same shop where I purchased my doll, I found the box. It called to me, just as she had, and I understood.
Oh, no, sir. I couldn’t tell you where the store is now. I wouldn’t if I could.
The puzzle box? If you like. Would you like to see how it opens? No? Let me just wrap it up for you, then.
Have a nice day, sir.
–
Notes: This piece was written in response to Chuck Wendig’s weekly Flash Fiction Challenge. I mulled over the prompt for a full week, decided to skip it, then had the idea to select a random item from either eBay or Etsy and write about whatever I found. As it turned out, I used one object from each site.
First, at eBay, I found this:
And then, at Etsy, I found this:
And then all I needed was some way to bring them together.
The rest of the stories for this week’s Challenge are linked here. I’m off to read them all.
