B.J. LAWRY is a former newspaper and magazine editor who finds it difficult to do anything under 500 words. She has been published everywhere; now she publishes other people at http:///www.storyone.org.
the box
It was just a tiny square of solid wood, polished teak, a thinly carved square an eighth of an inch from its edge.
My friend got it from a panhandler, pushing his wagon full of old clothes, brooms and jingling necklaces through elegant Palm Beach.
"How much?" she asked.
"Ugh." He shrugged. "A dollar."
For days she watched it, expecting it to deliver up its secret: What was it? Where had it come from? But it sat silent.
She glimpsed at it between brush strokes as she painted, placed it beside her as she slept. Soon she could not sleep at all, could not paint. The box had consumed her.
She threw it against her wall. It rolled back.
She searched for the panhandler, to return it, but he was never seen again.
She studied the small, carved square. Could that be its secret? That finely carved square at its top?
She borrowed a hammer from the building superintendent. One slam blew it apart, and her eyes widened as something popped out and rolled to her feet--a tiny, intricately carved, exquisite jade replica of the Buddha.
She reached to touch the Buddha, drew back, let it lay as she picked up the pieces of teak, a wad of cotton that had no doubt surrounded the obese treasure, and a small piece of paper such as one finds in a fortune cookie.
You will live many years in suffering.
Had she been a sensible girl, kept up her health and her rest, had she not been so consumed by that box, she would have tossed the note into the wastebasket, collected the bits of wood and glued them together, saved the jade figurine as an investment in her future.
She no longer was sensible.
She sits on the high stool in her studio, wrapped in her charcoal-colored shawl, painting lovely pictures of Buddha, singing softly.
I helped her rewrap the Buddha in its fluffy white cotton, repair its box and send it flying off the pier into the sea.
Now, in her special kind of suffering, she can sleep.
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© 2003 B. J. Lawry
