Special Boxes
Tomorrow afternoon, on January 9th, 2014, I will have my first job interview at BronzeRain Systems. How did I manage to get a normal life again? It started on Boxing Day. Uncle Charles finally arrived in England and gave me my present. It was a small wooden box containing a smaller item inside. I needed to learn how to open the tricky box; it was no easy task because of the knobs and grooves on it.
For all my technical skills, I had a lot of trouble. I couldn't even tell where the lid was at first. After three hours, I finally managed to get the box open and saw an eight-gigabyte flash drive. I promptly showed my achievement to Uncle Charles and remarked how tired I was of hearing the scrapes, knocks, and snaps from the box. Saying so suddenly triggered something in my mind. Those words meant something to me, but I couldn't remember why at that time. I decided to focus on my gift and asked about flash drive. My uncle told me that it contained forty songs that I might like by a new singer named Caroline Rivers. Something flashed in my subconscious again, but I still couldn't tell why these details were important.
My answer finally came in my sleep. I dreamed of a woman with curly red hair. Her face was vague at first, but finally cleared up. I noticed it was 2010. The woman was wearing a heavy black jacket and smiling at me as she approached. She put something in my hands and told me that it would help in the future when I became upset by the memories of the wooden box and became frustrated at the snapping. She started to walk away when I asked her what I was supposed to do with the box she gave me, but she cryptically told me that I'd figure it out someday. Before she completely disappeared, I asked for her name, and she told me it was River Song.
I woke up at 3:47 in the morning and realized that the dream came from my memories. I turned on the lights in my bedroom and grabbed the plastic box that River gave me. Ever since she gave it to me four years ago, I had nothing to do with it, but I didn't want to throw it away. Instead, I just used it to prop up some wires.
I opened the box. In it was a small machine attached to the bottom. There was also a green button that lit up. I pressed the button several times the first day I got the box, but never again. I pressed the button again for the first time in so long.
Pressure started to build up in my cortex, so much so that I had to put my head down. After a minute, I felt numb there. My head seemed different, almost lighter. Instinctively, I snapped my fingers and saw that nothing happened. I snapped my fingers dozens of more times until my hands became red and tired and still nothing happened. I jumped around out of happiness, accidentally waking up my mother in the next room.
The next day, I informed management at Pasta Corner that I would be leaving my job. I thanked the managers there profusely for letting me work at such an informal environment.
Now, I am ready to resume my normal life. I am thankful to River Song and Uncle Charles for the boxes they gave me. I'll be careful now about how I behave. I'll be a better person than I was before because if River Song can find me, I'm sure someone else can do the same.
END