Big brown paper box

The Big Brown Paper Box

It was just another ordinary day, or so I thought. I was walking home from work, something I did everyday except Saturday and Sundays. When I got home it was my usual routine, kick off my shoes, take off my bra and sit down and have a nice cold Twisted Tea. Those are one of my favorites, hands down. This was what I called the unwinding part of my day. Monday through Friday I worked with kids and as much as I love them, it was very very tiring. Anyway after about an hour of chillaxing, I decided I wanted to get up and start my dinner. I was eating chicken quesadilla’s tonight and I had to go to my mini garden inside my backyard to grab some peppers. As I'm gathering the peppers, from the corner of my eye to my left I saw something that was very unusual. It was unusual because nothing should have been there. So I fixed my eyes to the direction of the shadowy figure and I saw that it was a big box. An exceptionally big paper box. Of course I became startled because this wasn’t in my front yard or anything, it was in my backyard. And in order to get into my backyard you literally needed to go through my house. So im standing there, looking at the box, and slowly backing away. Whatever peppers I had, was all I was going to gather cause girlfriend was out ok. Anyway I get into the house and I call my friend Omar. When I called him he could clearly tell that something was wrong and said he’d be to my house in 5 minutes. So while I’m waiting for him, one of my neighbors came over because she needed some basil and peppers herself. I’m thinking to myself cool, she’ll see the box to and maybe we will open it. The strangest thing happened though, she didn’t see the box. She never brought it up, as a matter fact she actually walked right through it. My facial expression clearly showed that something was wrong because she asked if I was ok, and said I looked like I had just saw a ghost. I told her I was fine and said that I had just forgotten about something I didn’t do at work. She brought it, she thanked me for the basil and peppers and went on home. As she was going down the steps Omar was making his way up the steps. Omar had been my friend since we were kids, honestly we are definitely more than friends. The point was I didn’t think that he would think I was crazy if he couldn’t see the box either. So we went into the house and he’s like Nesh what’s wrong? I say just follow me to the backyard. So he does, and once were out there his first question was where did this huge behind box come from? I breathed out this big sense of relief, he was confused. I had told him that my neighbor couldn’t see the box so I was worried that he wouldn’t either. He said how didn’t she see this big old box, I was like I have no idea.

Now that we both established that we saw the box, we wanted to know what was in it. Honestly I was a little scared because of the way things are now days but Omar was never scared of anything. I always felt safe with him and when he said lets open it, I was ready. So were looking at the box, looking for ways to open it and get inside, and It looked impossible. I literally just laid my hand on the box to see if I could feel for anything to help me open it and its like the box went down into the ground. We looked speechless at each other. Where the box once was there was steps going down. I was terrified, Omar said lets go. I was scared, but it felt like the right thing to do, and he had never steered me wrong before. So I trusted him and the steps and we began to walk down them. We may have been 6 feet down when all of a sudden we were sucked into this new world. Maybe it was a new planet I don’t really know. All I do know is that it was beautiful, the scenery was like nothing of our world, it was like I was walking through tune land, all that was missing was Roger Rabbit. Once we took everything in, we looked over to each other and we were now tunes ourselves. Yeah we definitely freaked out at first, but then we realized how cool it was. We may have stayed for an hour or so, I mean come on, we was there with all the cartoon characters we grew up watching. Anyway we went back to the box and went back home. Of course we wanted to show our friends and family but none of them could see it. it was like we were chosen and nobody else could see that box.

A few months went by and there was a lot happening on our planet that was causing a lot of damage and just making things terrible. It was Thanksgiving Day to be precise which is my favorite holiday. There was reports of flooding all over the world. A lot of my family and friends were at my house because everybody loves my cooking. We made it past dinner time which was 6 pm and about an hour later the terror had hit Philly. Grounds was breaking, floods was happening at a rapid pace across the city. Me and Omar looked at each other and decided to take everybody to our Big Brown paper box. We went into the backyard, about a dozen of us (give or take a few) and I began leading these people down stairs. They were shocked, once the box was opened for them, they could then see the lights leading down the stairs. Mind you they have no idea about the suction part yet. After everyone appeared to be gone down the steps me and Omar stood there on the stairs in the ground where we literally watched our world be destroyed. It was like we were standing in a protected shield or something. We could see planes crashing, grounds breaking, there was even fire falling from the sky. There was no doubt in my mind that we got to witness the end of the world. I cried, I cried a lot. As the world finished ceasing to exist, Omar and myself proceeded to walk down the steps and within moments, we were united with our family and friends.

Everybody was so happy to see us, they thought we didn’t make it. Needles to say there were tons and tons of questions. We kept it all the way real. As far as I was concerned, That box was placed there by the universe for me to save as many people as I could when the time came. I really did wish I had knew the exact time at least a month in advance, because we could have saved more people. However, we did have 14 people and a whole world of never ending life from what I saw. I’m just so grateful that Omar saw the box to because I’m so sure that if he didn’t, we would all be dead. Like I said, I am not the risk taking type, and going down those steps appeared risky to me, but in the end, it was exactly what needed to be done to keep going forward.

The End

Venesha Owen

July 23, 2021