Ongoing

The monotony… it hurts.

And so life goes on.  Economics continues to tie me up and chuck me into the basement along with all other students who just can’t grasp why they’re there in the first place, my commitment to physical exercise is still larger than my commitment to performing in academics (to the point where I will run 10k in the pouring rain rather than stay in and study), and the weekend job that I so love becomes the highlight of my week despite its rather tedious and uninteresting nature.

Anyway, I wrote a short story a while ago, thought I’d share it.

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If you had looked at it without really paying attention, it would have looked like a cardboard box.
Robert, dressed impeccably in a fancy black coat and red tie, walked down Burrard Street in an elated manner.  The grin that spread from one side of his face to the other would have been enough to cheer up a crying baby, and he seemed to walk with a skip in his step reminiscent of elementary school playgrounds.  In his pocket, seemingly radiating and feeling a lot heavier than it actually was, was a small box bound in slick black leather with a fancy gold embroidered pattern on the side.  He kept placing his hand in his pocket every couple of minutes to confirm it was still there, and to feel the smooth edges of the small, black box.  In his other hand, Robert carried a briefcase which he swung back and forth jubilantly.
As he passed the Fairmont hotel, he noticed an overturned cardboard box down by the receiving garage.  It was sitting in the middle of the road, unaffected by the large puddle of water it was sitting it.  It looked anchored, not wet, and just… wrong.  In his elated state, he paused in the middle of the sidewalk, causing the flow of traffic to stop momentarily, and the person behind him to say very colourful things about his mother.  He hardly noticed; between his happiness and this utterly… fascinating cardboard box, his mind didn’t spare much room for anything else.  He was utterly captivated, both his conscious and subconscious occupied in a state of sublime bliss which depressives only dream of.
The box wasn’t floating; that much Robert had determined.  It was sitting at the bottom of the puddle of water, but it wasn’t wet.  Normally, cardboard turns a darker colour when it gets wet, but the colour was constant across the whole surface area.  He took his hand out of his pocket, leaving the black leather-bound box for just a minute, and leaned out to touch the cardboard box.  Upon putting his hand on the corner and pushing, Robert felt the wind start to pick up, and the first drops from the sky suggest that Vancouver was in for (another) rainstorm.  Robert frowned, his impeccable smile breaking for the first time all day.  It had been sunny only three minutes ago.
Robert had pushed the box out of the puddle so it was now resting on dry asphalt.  He walked around the puddle while reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a black umbrella.  The minute he put his umbrella up, the heavens erupted.  Rain the size of ping-pong balls thundered down from the sky and soaked Robert’s pants within seconds yet the water that landed on the box didn’t stick.  In fact, the rain didn’t seem to be hitting the box at all.
Robert reached under the corner of the box with the toe of his polished dress-shoe and made an upwards flicking motion with his foot.  All of a sudden, he heard a crack and an intense pain in his ankle.  He fell and landed hard on the now soaked asphalt, drenching himself to the core in one swift motion as he cried out in intense pain.  The people rushing by on Burrard Street hardly noticed his plight.  If they did, the rain soon reminded them that they were heading for whatever form of shelter they could find, and the man lying down in the alley behind the Fairmont was quickly forgotten.
Robert’s cries of pain were subdued by the intolerable noise of the rain crashing down.  His briefcase had fallen and burst open, soaking the interior and completely ruining the mound of paper he’d been transporting.  Suddenly, Robert had a horrifying thought, and all memory of the pain vanished from his mind.  He struggled to reach into his pocket and feel around for the small leather-bound box, but it was nowhere to be found.  Finally managing to sit up, he searched inside his jacket.  When he became frustrated, he took it off and searched frantically through all of the pockets, and then slowly he started to cry.  He glared angrily at the cardboard box, and reached over and pulled it closer, his ankle throbbing with the effort of moving his leg to get at the box.  He tried to tear the top apart, but only managed to break his fingernails.  He grabbed his ruined briefcase and started thrashing it against the cardboard box.  The handle broke and the case flew deeper into the alley.
Robert sat against the wall of the alley and sobbed hopelessly.  After a few minutes, he reached gingerly for the edge of the cardboard box, and lifted slowly.
When the rain subsided around midnight, Vancouver Ambulance and Police were called to the alley behind the Fairmont hotel to rescue a severely injured man suffering from hypothermia.  When they arrived, they found two things.  The first was a completely waterlogged and destroyed cardboard box.  The next was a man with a broken ankle, who, despite the fact he was lying down in an inch of water, was still dry.