Trapped in the box, the outline of a man presses desperately against the sides. He is a prisoner of war and the enemy trapped him inside the box. At first it wasn’t so bad, he just closed his eyes and waited it out. But as the days dragged on he began to go crazy. The inclosed space taking away any sanity he had. Every minute began to feel like hours. Every hour like weeks. It was chipping away his focus, eating at his very being. The longer he stayed in that little box the more he was losing it. Thoughts of how to escape started to race in his tired mind. He hit, kicked, and pushed at every inch of that box. He tried until his skin broke apart and became raw from the over use. His voice had grown hoarse from his cries and screams of despair. And yet no one came for him, no one told him to be quiet. No one cared. Then one day he stopped. The fighting and the noise. He sat in the silence and waited. Waited for when they came, waited for when the war was over and he could return home to his family. The longer he waited, the skinnier he got, the more he began to pray and to clear his thoughts. The man thought a lot in that tiny box, he had the time to after all. Some thoughts would make him smile, others made him cry silent tears. One day the box opened, light flooded the dark container and the man was forced to shield his eyes. A voice, one of someone he thought he knew, filled his now sensitive ears. It said, “The war was over. It was time to go home. Your torment was over.” The man looked up and cried with joy at the person he saw. It was his brother surrounded by a beautiful white light. The man reached up a skinny arm, with the last strength he had and grasped his brother's hand. The pain and suffering ended. He was safe, and warm, and at peace…...Weeks later the enemy opened the box and inside the man’s corpse lay, streaks from long dried tears stained his dirt filled face and a small smile graced his thin lips.
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AuthorEmma Schroeder is 17 years old, a senior at Taylorsville High School, and lives in Taylorsville, UT. Archives
November 2015
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