Here’s the prompt from the talented Reena Saxena @ xploration challenge
“I have untapped abilities waiting to be discovered.”
If you find it complex, you can use Layers as a theme for your piece.
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It was a journey that I look back upon and wish I had never begun. There are many layers to this journey. Too many…
It began with a wonderful life with an intelligent, witty, charming partner. I couldn’t have asked for more enjoyment. We shared many of the same interests: poetry, writing, going on adventures and playing games.
I wish now (for his sake) that I had never ever had a curiosity for boxes but I always had. There is something about lifting the top of a box if only to peek inside the corner. Boxes seemed potentially to hold treasure.
My interest in boxes is now a curse but I’m slightly ahead of this story.
The home I moved into with my husband had a basement filled with boxes. There were thousands of them. Some were very big while others were quite small.
“What’s in the boxes?” My curiosity to open each box caused me to ask.
“I don’t know. Most of them were left by the man I bought the house from. He was my auntie’s husband. Some of the boxes were dropped by my brothers and others left by my former wife. Those over there are my own.” He pointed to a neat stack of games. Many of those games we had already played with friends or family.
With too much time on my hands, I started looking at the boxes from a distance. They did not belong to us but they were in our home.
Then on a cold windy day, I opened the first one. It was a pretty box with shiny ribbon. There was a beautiful poem written with a lady’s elegance.
I put the box away, walked up the stairs and reflected on the beautiful poem. I got out my own poetry journal and began to write. My husband later remarked that these were the best poems I had ever written.
It snowed a few days later and I again went down the stairs to open one box. This box had blue geometric shapes on it. There was a note inside that said:
“You should look under the third tree to the right of the boundary. there is something interesting there.”
“It’s too cold.” I said to the note carefully putting the top back on the box. “Let’s see what’s in one more.”
“Listen to what you read or someone could end up dead.” A note was written in large bold print with a hefty exclamation point.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
A box fell on the flor. I opened it.
“No!!!” Even bolder letters stated.
I can’t tell you how fast my heart was beating but it was fast I assure you. I tried to calmly put each note back into their respective boxes and then back on the shelf they had come from. I turned to find the them back on the floor. Another had fallen and the lid off. The note opened “GO!”
“Okay I’m going.”
This time I left the boxes and grabbed gloves and a shovel. I forgot a winter jacket.
“What am I doing?” I spoke to the shovel as I walked toward the boundary of our property.
The tree looked slightly different from the others and I knew it was the right one. I dug. I didn’t need to dig too deep. There I found the bones that had belonged to a woman’s hand.
Not knowing what to do I put the hand back in the hole and covered it. I then went to the basement to put the boxes away and lock the door to the basement.
Another box had fallen and the note said “put it in here.”
I screamed.
“The hand?”
Another box fell. I didnt even bother to read it.
I rushed upstairs grabbed a bag to put the hand in. I wrapped the hand, covered the hole, ran back to the basement, put the hand in the box, taped that box together with all the tape I could find, put the rest of the boxes that had opened away, ran out of the room, locked the door, went upstairs, made some tea, look a long sigh.
I forgot about the shovel until my husband came to me with the shovel and a note…
Did I mention my undiscovered ability (underdiscovered) is as a closet horror writer?
penned in moon dust 