The Demon in The Box
The quiet of an English country morning was broken by the sound of rubber on tarmac. Maxwell pushed his face against the window and watched as the shop nosed into its usual parking spot. Its grey, slab-sided shape marred a scene that was murder-mystery perfect. The buildings that encircled the village green nestled amongst old oaks and chestnuts, yew hedges, and dry stone walls.
The woman arrived just after ten O’clock, when the walls of the grocery van turned from silvery grey to transparent, revealing rows of chiller cabinets and shelves of produce. She pushed a stroller that was too large to fit through the door of the shop; her older child, Marcus, complained when he was made to step down from the toddler-board and walk up the ramp on his own. The woman unbuckled baby Maddie from the seat and lodged her on her hip as she went in.
Maxwell’s view was hazed by the glass walls of the shop as the woman walked the aisle, plucking products from the shelves. He did not know her name. Marcus always called her mummy, his young voice crisp and faintly disapproving in a way that she probably didn’t deserve.
He was not sure why this scene provoked such deep melancholy. Or why, when he looked out of the window, it was the woman with her children whom he always hoped to see. As he turned away, his eyes were brimming. He wiped away the moisture and told himself not to be so soft.
Had he been a father, once? He could not remember.
The front wall of his apartment had three windows; they arched high, wrapped in dark wooden trim. The patterned wallpaper that surrounded them was a vile shade of green, or so he thought today. He must have liked it yesterday, when he chose it.
He went to make breakfast. After he’d finished eating, the Demon tempted him to let it clean up the kitchen. It lurked in a scalloped wooden box that might have held an old carriage clock, its single red eye-lens attentive. It didn’t need to say anything. The temptation was implicit. There’d been a time when he’d let the Demon do almost everything around the apartment, but the lack of purpose had all but driven him mad. So he scraped the congealed fat from the saucepan and washed it carefully, then wiped away the scattering of coffee-grounds around the espresso maker. A small spark of satisfaction bloomed at the sight of the pristine wood-block counter.
He’d intended to go back to the window, but the loneliness hit him like an icepick in the gut. The woman and her children would be gone. They never spent more than a few minutes in the shop. He’d been watching them for months as they made their twice-weekly visit. Maxwell yearned to introduce himself, but he knew where that desire would lead. He flexed his hands, remembering the pain.
“Demon, take me somewhere where there are no people. To the mountains. Wherever it is spring.”
The windows darkened momentarily. The sun shifted in the sky; it was a little later in the day. A mountain valley swept down from his new vantage-point. Remnants of winter snow clung to distant peaks, but the high meadow in which his apartment sat was green and strewn with wildflowers. There was a cabin a few hundred feet down-slope, but he saw no one.
“Demon, hide the apartment, please. Give me some grass to lie on.”
The apartment vanished. Maxwell stood in a glass box, its floor embedded in the sloping ground. Grass and flowers grew up around his feet. As he sat down amidst the stalks, he wondered if the grass should not be more brittle. Perhaps he remembered that. He remembered so little… from before.
He sat cross-legged, letting the scenery wash over him with the warmth of the afternoon sun. He waited for it to melt the pangs of loneliness that twisted in his gut, but the feeling did not go away. The sun flared on the glass walls around him, marking their outline. Confining him. Reminding him that this five hundred square foot space was the compass of his entire life. After only a few minutes, he stood, and paced around the perimeter, fingers tracing a line on glass so slick it was almost not there. The apartment seemed smaller without the familiar clutter.
“Demon, bring the apartment back,” he snapped.
There it was: The kitchenette, the day-bed where he slept, the chess table, the high, Gothic windows. And the demon box, sitting on its shelf.
“Demon, take me where there are people.”
“Are you sure?” said the demon. Its voice was cool, but concerned. “You remember…”
“Yes, I remember.”
Memories intruded. Memories of pounding on the glass with fists and feet, not even trying to break out, but simply trying to catch the attention of someone out there. Of throwing his chess table with all his might against the glass, throwing it at the face of a man who stood in his window, only to see the heavy antique wood splinter and break without creating the slightest reaction on the other side. Memories of sobbing at some random woman’s feet, un-noticed. Untouched.
“But I don’t care,” he concluded, eventually.
The windows darkened again.
The apartment now stood in a plaza crowded with light and color. Beyond a giant archway of honey-shaded stone, the sun hung low over the ocean; the evening light washed softly over the old colonial buildings that hemmed the great square but struck dazzling slashes of pink and orange from the glass cityscape beyond.
He was in India. Where the people were. How very… literal.
Maxwell stood in his window. The crowds swirled around the old monument. Vibrant silks and linens jostled alongside dull office clothes and the occasional neon-bright tourist backpack. He wondered again what it was the people on the other side saw, for he knew they could not see him, and yet men and women streamed to either side of the apartment, sometimes even turning a sharp angle to avoid touching the walls.
A young boy approached. His brown hair was shiny and carefully combed. He was dressed in his best clothes, Maxwell thought, although there was already a patch of dirt on one knee. His little hand reached out to touch the glass. He seemed for all the world to be looking at something within. Maxwell knelt down so that their eyes were at a level, and smiled.
The child smiled back. Maxwell grinned and stuck his tongue out, giddy with excitement at the hint of rapport… but the boy’s face remained unchanged; gently amused at something a few inches above Maxwell’s own right shoulder. A mother’s hand, be-ringed and hennaed ready for some family celebration, whisked him away.
He told himself he wasn’t disappointed. The encounter had, after all, ended the same way as a thousand others. His clenched fist did not so much hit the glass as kiss it.
Then he saw her. She seemed to be walking towards him with purpose. His eye picked her out while she was still dozens of yards away. Her thin red hair was pulled back in an untidy bun, and her pale Celtic features glistened with a heavy application of sunscreen. She was as obviously an outsider as he was.
Maxwell’s chest squeezed with excitement as she came closer. He knew her. Memories of her came flooding back. Her name, her age, her social security number. She reached out, and touched the window. Their eyes met. He was dazzlingly, intoxicatingly certain she was looking at him.
“Demon,” she said. “Show me the way back to my hotel.”
