3

"This is me. Come in.", the boy says.

But he is not a boy, he is a man.  His height reaches a little over six feet tall, but his rounded, hunched shoulders make him look shorter, as if he wants to shrink away and fold into himself.  He is a sturdily built man with strong, thick arms and legs.  But seeing him here, sitting on a wobbly wooden stool in the middle of the dimly lit, dusty attic, sitting forward with elbows on his knees, hands covering his face, he is an old man, tired and ashamed to have to show this side of him.

The room is tidy. Several steel racks line the walls with everyday items carefully placed, making sure they do not touch or overlap. I spy a baseball bat, a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses a kid would wear, and a super-sized Big Gulp plastic cup of all things. One rack contained a few of those cardboard filing boxes.  I almost didn't notice one box that was tucked behind all the other boxes.  The entire box was wrapped tight in packing tape in multiple layers.  I moved the other boxes aside and pulled it out to inspect it.

He must have used an entire roll to seal that box to the point it could have been water resistant.  This looked like a box he had no plans of letting anyone get into.  Compared to the well-organized and precise placement of all the other objects on the shelves, the box looked like he tried to tape it angrily, obsessively.

"Leave it alone, please." There was a strain to his voice when he made the request.

"Of course."  I slowly placed the box back where it was.  I re-arranged the rest of the boxes, careful to make sure it was as close to how there were before I had disturbed it.

"What is in that box?", I inquired.  The box had weighed a bit, though I didn't hear any rustling or shifting inside when I picked it up.  Whatever was inside was either padded generously or it filled the entire box.

I looked back at him, but he is now standing by the window overlooking the backyard. He doesn't answer for a few minutes.

"I shouldn't have brought you here." He shook his head, eyes seeing into the box and into the past.  He sighed and I can see dust motes dancing in the space his breath had traveled. Late in the afternoon, the sliver of sunshine only hit one side of the room and it was getting dimmer by the minute.

"Let me turn on the light, please.", I offered.