A Story

The Box I Took With Me.

I imagined that I would float to heaven and be welcomed, with some degree of persecution. Instead I stood outside of a door with a little box in my hand. I looked back at the door and thought; maybe if I go through it, I’ll suddenly be back on earth, back to the normal, back to the usual. I tried the knob but the door was locked. And I had nothing on me but the clothes on my back and a box.
So I started walking. I kept walking and wondered what was going to happen next. No one could possibly have written about this experience. I was beyond scared for my life, or lack of one. Was the longer I walk, the longer they had to decide where I was going next? Or did no one get in, and they kept walking, until the final judgment day? I would have thought, to help with the flow, they would let the dead in as they came, but I guess if you are impatient with getting into heaven, would you really get into heaven?
As I walked I started to notice something in the white existence of nothing. It looked like a man, and he was just waiting. I began to get excited, maybe it was another traveler like me, and was tired of walking. But it also increased my fear as well, that he has been walking a lot longer than I have, and hasn’t gotten anywhere yet.
The man looked at me, and said, “What’s in your box?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I looked at the box and looked for a way to open it, but there was nothing there for me to open it with. I was disappointed by this and also curious of why I was carrying a box that didn’t open. I thought about putting it down and leaving it behind, but somehow I knew that wasn’t that great an idea. I looked to the man and asked, “Do you have a box?” “No,” he said, “I gave mine away.”
I was shocked; he knew what was in the box? “What was in your box?”
“Everyone holds something different in their box.”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bother with this man, but he walked along side of me like it was normal, and any kind of normalcy was gladly accepted at this point. I didn’t think that anymore conversation was needed with this man; I was enjoying the walk, and I’m sure he would have given me more cryptic answers anyways. I was curious though, since I had never been here. I thought of how to ask him about the landscape of white, but considering that there was nothing to it, but white road and white existence, I didn’t think it made much of a conversational piece. He seemed almost familiar anyways, like he knew me or had known me, but I had never seen him before in my life.
So instead I asked him, “Who did you give your box to?”
He laughed. I was shocked by this, and then he phrased it, “Who would you want to give your box to?”
“I really don’t know, well, maybe if I knew what was in the box I’d know.”
“Does this box really mean that much to you?”
“I don’t know what it is! How do I know if it is of value?”
He paused for a while, and laughed again. I was almost offended except somehow he knew what was in my box and I didn’t. I would have looked to the side if I would have found anything of any color over there. Not that it mattered, but I could at least pretend to be interested in something else besides the man.
“Maybe,” I said,”If I give it to you…”
“What do I need a box for?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
He shook his head, and said,”Are you really going to give a box of all you ever known and had since you got here, to a man you don’t know?”
“I know you, somehow,”
He smiled, “I don’t have the key”
“What key?”
“To your box,” he pointed. I looked again, but there was no keyhole, or anything that looked like a keyhole. “What key?” I asked again.
“Look.” And I looked up to see two men sitting on a bench. They looked like they were waiting for something.
Trying to be funny, I said,”So, are you waiting for the bus? I don’t think this is one of its regular stops.” The two men looked at me and one said, “No, we were just having a conversation.”
By this time, I think I was going crazy. It may have been all the white. It may have been my cryptic companion. I’m not sure. “What’s in your box?” One man asked.
“Horses,” I said, “Lots of horses and their pastures.” They weren’t surprised or impressed I think. Quite plainly, I was sick of my box, and its “treasures.” I was going to put it down and leave it behind, but then I noticed that these men didn’t have any boxes, something was up. “Where are your boxes?” “We gave them away.”
“You know, this is ridiculous.” I said. And I started to walk away, where I was going, I’m not sure in this white world. But I start to think, why are they giving their boxes away? What was in them? Who are they giving them to? They were all against me. What was in this box, that I was supposed to give away? So I turned back around, “What is in this box?”
One man looked up, and said, “I don’t know. What do you put into a box? Treasure? Things that don’t have a place? What do you store in a box? Everything and anything is in that box.”
The other two men nodded like it was this great oration. “Everything and anything,” I said as I looked at the box. Then I thought some more. “I know exactly who I want to give this box to.” The two men and my companion’s eyes lit up, “Well then,” said my companion. ”Who is this person you want to give this box to?”
“God. I want God to have my everything and anything,” I said. The two men handed over to my companion unidentifiable items rather sullenly, as if they made a bid on my life. And my companion motioned me to follow him. As if whiteness had a life of its own, it engulfed me and I was transformed into a room full of people, happy people, in fact. In the middle, the floor was made of a clear substance, looking down on earth. I saw a man as regular as they come, that I stood before. “So I hear you have a box for me.” He says.
“Are you….” Then there was no doubt in my mind who He was, I just knew. Then I looked at my companion, and it was like I saw him for the first time. In my lifetime, he was there when I doubted everything. When I fell, he saved me. When I was happy, he rejoiced. He was my guide, my protector, my holy spirit.
“Here,” I said to the man in front of me, “I’ve been wanting to give you this all along,”
“Why were you waiting?”
“Because….because, I didn’t want to give you anything bad.”
“But I take in the bad with the good, I accept you for who you are, and everything that’s in this box, which is your true heart.” and He opened it, I looked inside to see my hopes and fears, my doubt, my strife, my evilness as well as goodness, and everything I had done in my life, was there. There was no hiding, no getting away now. There it was, in black and white. Right there in that box. Then I realized something. I could have given that box to Him long before I got here. Before the door, before the white road, before my companion walked with me for miles to see what I thought and wished for my life. Before I ever died, I could have given Him my life. But I was afraid. I accepted and believed, but I couldn’t give my whole life up. And I didn’t have to wait.

I didn’t have to have it stored in a box.