By Kaya Miller
One day she had a box.
Not a box… a crate. Yes a crate, because it had slots, gaps, holes, ready to let go.
She walked around with it and gathered them all, despite the holes, the gaps, the box—no, crate—ready to drop.
People would ask, “Well, why don’t you get a real box?”
“Why not cover the slots with tape, paper, a bag?”
Anything to stop the trail left behind her.
Oh what a sight it was—
Girl neatly dressed … little black peacoat.
Girl so poised … red beret.
Girl so prepared … knee-high navy wool socks.
Girl properly carried … steps clacking on pavement.
Girl losing it all.
Her crate dripped, leaked, practically wept, and yet she continued to stomp through the city collecting all she could fit inside, no matter the pattern weaving behind her with every step she took.
A man, so poised, stopped her, crouched with a face so peculiar, and asked,
“Why do you litter our streets?”
“Why do you carry a crate?”
”Why let the holes release your world onto ours?”
And the little girl, why, she can only stare up. So curious, a hazed look in her eyes as they dig through the stranger’s gaze.
“I like this crate,” she says.
“I like how it feels, how it prickles my skin if I jump too quick, run too hard, laugh too loud.”
I like the crate.
“But what about your stuff? Why go block to block filling it until you have nothing left?”
Why she simply laughs and (finally!) finally rests her crate on the ground. Eyes watching the girl carefully, a crowd forming holding everything she has dropped in the day.
Things properly wrapped in bags, paper, tape, elastic bands—each adult towers over her, the belongings clutched in their concerned hands. Theirs are calloused, where hers just sit atop the crate, peacefully, somehow undamaged from squeezing tightly on a crate all day.
Oh how they look disheveled compared to our neatly dressed girl, so curious, so strange…
And she says, “Well, I just like knowing someone picks the stuff up. “
“Someone cares for what I lost, for what I placed so gingerly, and left without care.”
“I’m not silly, I know a good and proper bag or box holds better. But I like the feeling of the crate in my hands. I like knowing that what I like means something.”
They all just stand and stare in response.
One by one, fixing themselves, the suits, dresses, stockings and loafers pass by her, dropping their collection of left items in the crate upon the ground. Hats are fixed, ties are tightened, makeup is retouched. All evidence of the adults’ confusion and care is removed as the neatly dressed little girl sits with her fully-filled crate, now so stuffed, it cannot leak.