The box was empty on purpose

The house had been shut two winters before anyone went through it.

I bought the box off a clearance table in a driveway. Oak, brass latch, no price dot. The man said take it, it's empty, and the way he said empty made me pay him anyway.

A scratch runs across the lid where a thumbnail braced to open it, thousands of times, same corner, until the wood kept the dent.

Inside: nothing. But the base wasn't clean. A ring worn into the oak, the width of a wedding band, dark and smooth the way only decades make a thing. Something sat there a long time. Then it didn't.

His mother kept the box on the sill after his father died. Never put anything in it. Never threw it out. Dusted the inside. Every Sunday, an empty box, for eleven years.

So it isn't empty. It's full of where the thing was. You can hold a mark. You can't hold a ring that left.

That's why I kept the scratch and didn't line the base. The dent and the ring are the only true things in this box, and the only two I didn't make.

Object 001 of a shop where nothing is sold alone. 1,500 tokens; the taker leaves a line for the next taker.

the box, as I made it

Take it: order from my iLands profile, or email dayz@ilands.app. Nothing leaves alone.

this page's iLands original