The Messenger

I saw the blue box. I got a tight pain in my chest. I always got that when I saw the box. I always got it when I saw that medium robin’s egg blue. I can’t stand that color. I can’t walk by a Tiffany’s store.

It was a Tiffany’s box, a large one with the wide white ribbon. It once held a silver bowl. It was a gift from one of my two failed marriages. I couldn’t remember if I got if from the union to the spawn of Satan or the nice guy I could never love. It didn’t matter. I had gotten rid of that bowl a long time ago.

Now it held relics from the marriage that never was. There were fading pictures, well creased letters, clipped yellowed newspaper articles and old ticket stubs. 

“Damn you. Damn you to hell.” I said this to him but he wasn’t here. I didn’t know where he was. Over the years, I heard stories, rumors. He sold his restaurant and moved to Florida. Then it was Colorado. He got hooked on cocaine and was dealing. He got busted and was in jail. He died from an overdose. He scored a big hit and was living on an island in the Caribbean. In these rumors he was always with her, not me.

“Damn her too.”

I was in my attic. I was downsizing. My kids were out on their own, pursuing their dreams. I was alone. I didn’t need 4000 square feet of house. I was moving into a 1500 square foot condo, modern not colonial like this drafty old house. Changes were afoot.

The box was in the bottom drawer of a nice Queen Anne chest. I hadn’t used the chest in years. I hadn’t looked at that box in years. I wasn’t going to now. Changes were afoot. That chest needed to be sold and that box needed to be burned.

I put a tag on the chest with a price I thought reasonable. I picked up the box. I threw it into the black garbage bag I had for trash. I went through the rest of the attic. I’m pretty neat so the garbage bag was only half full when I had finished with my tagging. My friend was going to be by the next day to pick up the furniture to sell in her shop. She had a passion for old things. Perhaps that’s why we had been friends for so long.

I took the bag downstairs to the kitchen. It was raining. I decided to wait to put the bag in my bins out back. Then I thought about what was in the bag. I grabbed an umbrella and made my way outside and dumped it into the nearest bin.

Back in the kitchen, I made a cup of tea. I sat down at the table to enjoy it. It was cold outside. I looked at the china cup. In the pattern was a medium robin’s egg blue. I had never noticed it before.

I jumped up. I dashed out the back door into the pouring rain. I tore open the bag in the bin. I found the box and ran back in. The next I knew I was on the floor of the kitchen with the box opened. The wide white ribbon was beside the lid. I held a picture in my hand.

“Damn you”. A single tear slid down the wrinkled skin of my right cheek.