The Red Box

Short story for school


The brain is a beautiful thing. It’s like a chest that never overflows and its hinges are never strained. We store everything inside of our chest; memories, emotions, experiences, people, pictures, words, songs, everything; beautiful things. Our chest plays a significant role in our body, but is there something greater than these treasures we store up?

Jacob lived an uneventful life in a suburban neighborhood. He was an only child, so he retreated to his room whenever he would come home. He was a kid with a particular fascination with the brain. He spent hours and hours of his time reading books about the human brain, how it worked. Often he would sit in his room and think about how he processes thoughts, ideas, and memories. He would dwell on his memories, questions, and thoughts. He was addicted to them. Closing his eyes and replaying events in his head, they made him happy. “What if I could control my memories”, he asked himself one day. “What if I could only remember what I wanted? Would I be happy all the time, because I could only remember the things I have enjoyed in my life?” Intrigued by this idea he decided that he would write everything down that he wanted to remember. He started with his favorite memories, anything and everything that brought a happy thought to his head. “The first kiss I had with Jennifer, hiking in Colorado with the guys, flying for the first time”, he wrote. For hours he wrote down his favorite memories, and then broke them down into details, into stories. Word filled notebooks would go into a red box that he kept in his closet. Every day he would come home and write down what he enjoyed about the day. He decided to morph events that he didn’t like, into something that he did. “I’m rewriting my life so that it is always enjoyable, so I’m bound to have a happy ending. I’ll look back on my memories, how I wanted them to be. Perpetual happiness” He spent hours reliving, recreating, events in his mind.
“Why don’t you just tell them that you’re frustrated, and you all can understand each other better?” Jennifer asked, as they walked through downtown one overcast evening.
“I just can’t. I don’t feel comfortable sitting down for a simple conversation with them”. They sat down at a bench. “I appreciate what they’ve done for me; I just don’t think there’s anything else I can get from them. I’m leaving for school soon, so I’ll come back and visit every once in a while, and then I think I’ll naturally be able to show them that I don’t completely despise them. I know I’ve needed them in the past, to teach me to walk and talk. I can do everything else on my own.”
With a concerned look, Jennifer said, “Your petty frustrations and nerves that you have against them isn’t necessary. Why do you try and convince yourself that you don’t need them? Your dysfunctional relationship with them seems to be your own fault. What’s so bad about them? Do you understand all their punishments and restrictions are for what they think is your own benefit? It’s not to hurt you. You shouldn’t just write them out of your life.”
A little shocked that she was leaning on their side, he replied, “Maybe. I’d rather make my own choices. I’m a good kid; I’ve stayed out of trouble. You’d think that they would notice that. I’m looking forward to leaving. Maybe it will be easiest to write them out for the most part.” He grabbed her hand, “Besides, you’re the one that makes me happiest, no need to risk having people that don’t make me happy all the time.”
She looked at him, frustrated, and said with a hint of sorrow in her voice, “I hope that you don’t mean that. It sure doesn’t make me happy to see you do that to your parents. You spend hours in your room, by yourself. I’m worried about you, you aren’t the boy I remember when I was younger. We may not work out much longer if you keep trying to get rid of everything you don’t like. Ever think that I may like some of the things you don’t?”

The red box haunted him that night. He wrote down Jennifer and his conversation. He had never wanted to change something she said before. He didn’t like what she said, it made him feel guilty. He tried to change it, but he couldn’t. For days he would reread his forged version of the conversation with her. How he thought it should have gone, trying to make it better. No matter how much tried to believe that was how it went, he knew deep down in his heart that it wasn’t true. He couldn’t control his thoughts, and he didn’t like it. His thoughts didn’t control his life. After spending hours in his room thinking he concluded that the only way he could rewrite their conversation to be how he liked it, would be to prove to Jennifer he was a better guy than she thought. That would make the conversation obsolete. The only way was to change his relationship with his parents.
“Why do I struggle so much with something so simple? It shouldn’t be so hard. I must show them some sort affection and appreciation.” The hours began to turn into days. He wrote and planned what he would have to do. As he did this, there was more and more that he didn’t want to remember involving his parents flashing through his mind. The things he had said to them. The hurt he must have caused them. He faced regret. A battle raged inside him. The pull of the forged memories was strong. He wanted to make it easy. “Why can’t I just tell myself what happened, and what will happen. I should be able to control my life”. Her words would flow right through after those, “Ever think that I may like some of the things you don’t”. Finally, after convincing himself he had control of how the conversation would go; Jacob built up the courage to ask his dad to go out to lunch with him.
“Jacob, I can’t tell you how happy I am that you wanted to go out to lunch with me”, his dad said.
“Yeah…” Jacob mumbled. Bitterness fought against his guilt.
“Is there any reason why? Or did you just want to spend quality time with your old man before you went off to school? It’s not too far away you know.”
“I don’t know, just wanted to talk, I guess.”
“I’m always happy to listen to you, bud, let’s get a table first.”
After they ordered, Jacob mumbled out a few words. Stumbling over them, “Why am I having such a hard time with this?” He thought. “I figured out the logic last week, it’s for the best, just say it”, he told himself.
“Dad…I guess I just wanted to…”
Just as he began that sentence, time slowed to a halt. Jacob’s eyes lifted to directly behind his dad, as he saw a man draw two machine guns out of his coat. The man had a crazed look in his eye. He just fired his gun into the air, laughing, and then began to spray bullets at whoever he saw. Jacob saw the clerk get hit in the chest, and three people that were standing in line were shot from behind as they began to run. In a split second, almost as if it were instinct, everyone in the diner began diving to the ground for cover. Others were falling to the ground because they were shot. Jacob observed all of these in a second, he looked and saw his dad was plunging over the table, and the two of them fell to the ground. They crawled on their hands and knees to get behind the wall next to them. Still firing, the crazed man looked Jacob directly in the eye and swung his guns toward him. His dad then stood up in front of Jacob, and the man fired, and fired.
Jacob lay there for what felt like hours, with his ears ringing. He blinked; with his eyes opening to two men tackling the gunman from behind. Another blink; and they were on top struggling. Saw dust was floating, searching for a place to land. Broken glass and pieces of food were laying everywhere. He was afraid to move, because he knew what he would see when he turned around. He had seen his dad throw himself in front of him. He didn’t want to face what he knew had happened, so he slowly turned around. Women crying and people scurrying through the building seemed to evaporate from the building. Time began to speed, up and he grabbed his dad.
“DAD! Are you okay? Say something!”
Distressed, screaming, unnerved. He put his hands on his dad’s wounds, blood was pouring out, he didn’t have enough hands to cover them all. His dad groaned.
“You’re going to be alright dad, okay?” He assured franticly.
His dad looked him in the eyes. Jacob instantly went silent. He saw something in his dad’s eyes that he couldn’t believe. His dad was calm. Sirens wailing in the background
“I’m proud of you Jacob, make your mother proud” He said with a still voice. He breathed deep, and closed his eyes.

Jacob went home that night without saying a word. He could hear his mother weeping all night. For a week, he heard her crying from his bedroom at night. He couldn’t find words for Jennifer when she tried to talk to him. Complete silence. He thought as he lay in his bed. “I’m proud of you”. “Why is he proud of me? How have I made him proud? All I’ve done is disrespect and ignore him for so long.” He told himself.
With his red box sitting in front of him, he read through his memories, some forged, some real. With a fresh pencil and notebook, a small part of him began to rewrite what happened that day. “I was able to talk to my dad. I was able to tell him that I appreciated him. I love you dad, I said to him.” Then proceeding to crumple up the paper and throw it against the wall. He put his face in his hands and began to weep. Nothing he could do changed what he remembered. Nothing he was ever going to write and tell himself changed what happened. “I’ve tried with simpler things and it didn’t work. There’s no way this is going to work. I can’t rewrite this. I try to replay it in my mind to end differently. But it doesn’t.”
Struggling with this, he kept replaying the scene over and over again. “He saved my life. Why would he do that? He took more than one bullet for me, and I’ve done nothing in return for him.” He remembered the regret he felt before this, and it had now tripled. He paced his room, thinking Remembering what his dad said to him. He explored every detail of the day. Then he remembered the second half of what his dad told him,
“Make your mother proud.”
“Make her proud?”
“Make her proud.”
Jacob then grabbed his red box and a lighter, ran outside. He stood there for several minutes, fighting. Finally he lit the box. He watched everything that he thought made him happy, true and false memories turn to ash. In his heart he knew what was reality, and he couldn’t change reality.
He then said, “Dad, I don’t know how I made you proud. I should have died, not you. I’ve tried for years to make myself happy. Ignore the things that didn’t. Change the things I didn’t like. I tried to control my life. I can’t get the thought of you dying in front of me out of my brain, I can’t recreate the memory. If only I didn’t ask you out for lunch, and had been able to talk to you and mom more easily. My mind is losing a battle with my heart. I thought I could change my own life. I realize now that I can’t do that. I have no control over it. I’m going to keep making you proud. I’m going to make mom proud. I’m not going to live my life so selfishly anymore. I’m not going to live by my mind, but by my heart. I know that you will always be in my heart. So, no matter how difficult things get, there is no need to try and write it out, to change, to forget it. I know I will get through it. I know you love me.”

The fire died. Jacob stood there weeping, yet, as if a burden had been lifted, smiling.