The Cardboard Box

One windy morning on my way to work I noticed a big cardboard box had blown into the front yard. Maybe someone bought a new microwave up the road and the box had gotten loose. Once again, a gust of wind picked up the box and blew it a few more feet before it landed near my oak tree.

When I got home later that day the carboard box was gone. I imagined I would never see the box again and was happy with that thought.

The next day I was taking out the trash and spotted the cardboard box. There it was. It had blown into the open field behind our backyard. One of the flaps had torn and it flickered in the wind. The box was trapped under a large bush where the field meets the dense tree line. I assumed the box would eventually set itself free with its wide sail, opening and shutting now and again. Once free it could blow deep into the forest, where no one could see it, where it belonged. 

A week later the box was still there, still trapped, but now in a heavy downpour. The sides of the cardboard box turned dark and the structure began to fold into itself. Slowly the box became a sad, soggy square moaning under the grey skies. 

 A month went by and grass grew against the sides of the box. It was becoming a part of the landscape. While mowing I rode over to see if there was any information I could find about the box. Where it’d come from? What was in it? The address label had long disappeared and now a long tan strip of packaging tape fluttered in the breeze like a crisp leaf of a dead palm tree. An amazon of emptiness and mystery was all that remained.

Maybe if I pushed it with the front of the riding lawnmower, I could free it from its thorny jail. Maybe a little movement would loosen the box and allow it to continue its journey into the woods where it could quietly spend its last days. 

I circled around and got a good running start and plowed into the cardboard box with the front of the mower. I misjudged its toughness, and it collapsed instantly and was sucked underneath the blade box. A great commotion erupted, and a loud clanging started right before the mower jolted to a stop. I got off the mower and started pulling big chunks of cardboard from underneath the carriage. I was not happy about this and I expressed myself loudly. I threw the panels into the field, cursed the box and started the mower again and took off. Several small pieces of cardboard shot out from the mower and as I looked back, I could see it was littered everywhere. I had made a huge mess of this box and regretted my decision to even approach it.

It was here I decided there was no turning back. I was going to have to run over this cardboard box again and make the pieces smaller. A few more runs would cut the box into small enough parts so you couldn’t see them anymore. Eventually they would just blend into the field. 

The box was spread out, so I started doing circles to blow the box scraps back into the middle of the circle. Sometimes a big chunk of the box would go under and just blow back out the same size. I had to catch the box just right to ensure it was chopped. This was taking much longer than I imagined and I was getting a little dizzy riding around in circles for what seemed like 20 minutes. Each time I ran over the box I would scream insults and cuss at it at the top of my lungs, but this box was getting what it deserved.

As the sun began to set, I was happy with the job. The box was now confetti in the field. Khaki shreds blended into the fallow field and melted out of view. The month I had spent with the cardboard box had ended. I was happy to see it gone. As I rode away, I yelled a slurry of victorious curse words and noticed my neighbor in his backyard. He was standing there watching me. I looked at him and he looked at me and I waved as I kicked the mower into rabbit speed and sped away.