M I R A G E
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Lights Out, Arnold Boxley Otis Luttschwager Student Contest, Spring 2018, 2nd Place Lights out. Cameras on. The Box began to rustle. The face that was permanently carved into its cardboard exterior held a look of lifelessness. It was anything but lifeless. It shuffled along the floor of the back room, half awake. It was gathering other remnants of cardboard. Attaching its trash extremities. “It’s go time.” Said the man behind the camera. The Box pushes through the swinging doors of the back room. It marches. Up and down the aisles of the store where it spends its time. It moves with sureness, with purpose. The man behind the camera watches every night. He can’t figure it out. He won’t tell anyone. He tried that once with the guy that takes over after him. He still gets the occasional passing joke on his way out. It is a tall tale afterall; sometimes he doesn’t believe it himself. Occasionally the Box will stop his march and stare at an item on a shelf before it fumbles to try and hold it in its shakey fingerless trash nubs. Some days it can put the items back where it found them but most days it drops them. “C’mon, lil fella. You can do it.” Dropped. “Damn.” The Box stares at its mistake. A lone pack of Sharpies, now on the ground. It moves on as if the markers were always meant to be on the floor. About halfway through the night the Box stops marching. It saunters casually to the fridges by the checkout and pulls out a soda. Then it grabs a magazine. It sits down. “Fifteen minute break already?” The Box doesn’t drink the soda. Why would it? Could it even open the bottle without fingers? It flips through the magazine. Some nights it even holds it the proper way. “Oh, you picked up an issue of Cosmo today? Branching out, I see.”
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