Peach kissed the buildings. White strips cotton candy appeared among the greyish blue and I lay watching the colours reflected upon the windows of the buildings in view. The canopy of a tree stuck out amongst the wave of dusky green forest of trees that outlined the background. I guess I am blessed that she wanted to show me her beauty. Or maybe I looked for it. I looked for her beauty.
My heart box was heavy with many a feelings. Some light, some not so. Some weigh down and I have to tend to them before I can carry the box along. Thus is life and I have learnt to be grateful for the days where my heart box is light and so easy to carry.
My heart box has gone through many a things. As my fingers run across it I feel its bumps, scratches, bruises and indents. Inside it I find most of the time truths to be told about me. Some days it sends me messages, of certain feelings, and when I finally find the time to sit and examine them I find those feelings were not exactly what I thought they were.
Time must've passed just like that and I sit with the box underneath my right hand. There are days when I am ready just to give it away just like that but I know it is indeed the most precious thing under the sun for however far away it may be from me, its influence and impact upon me is real. My heart box is the wellspring of my life and over the years I have learnt to guard it. Many a people have sought to snatch it, even steal it from right under my nose and I sometimes allow them to. Sometimes I fight to keep it and sometimes I have to hide it to keep it from being broken. Its been broken many a times and I had to go back to its maker for fixing. Those are painful times for fixing the heart box is indeed the hardest task in the whole wide world.
I recently went back to its maker and I realised that he was the best person to bring my heart box back to. Over the years I have tried fixing my heart box with glad wrap, bubble wrap, even band aids. I have tried tearing it apart and putting it back together again. I have tried burning, welding, and each time is but a patch, not quite a fix. One day my heart box just broke. The crack I had tried to glue and then patch with layers and layers of masking tape just gave way and it broke in half. After several invitations from the maker himself I finally went to him. He sat me down, heart box in his hand and he tore it all apart. I was apalled. He cleaned out its insides, even right down to the deposit box at the very bottom and related to me how each damage, each tear, each scratch, each bruise happened. Some I have even forgotten. Funny how I ached inside and out. He knew each part well and I sat there wondering if I had come earlier, how much easier it would've been.
There was a deep crevice at the bottom right hand corner of my heart box. It had begun to rot, and termites had begun eating at it. I'd like to tell you all about it but to cut the long story short the crevice first appeared when I entrusted the heart box to quite the wrong person. A man who did not know quite what to do with it. He tried to fill my heart box with some of the junk from his and because it could not fit he thought it was a good idea to use his pick and hammer. So pick in hand he hammered until his junk fit. How uncomfortable was that. it wasn't until he left the box at my doorstep one day that I felt the weight of his junk. Of course I did not see the crevice. The last man let in some termites. Gosh it did hurt, now I feel it. My heart box had been well insulated with numbness then.
I had walked into many places without my heart box after that. But some people hunt for it with their pick and hammer. Such an unsafe world this is. But the maker told me the ones who have no idea how to care for their own heart box will never know how to care for another's. At one time of my life I was so sick of the pain my heart box causes me that I locked it up in a safe in a room in a house that I had no keys to just so it was far away from me. But then one day a friend found it, and returned it to me. What was I to do with such an ugly damaged thing? She told me to see its maker. I know this maker and he knew me, I have given him many a things but my heart box. So unable to do anything but notice its sorry condition I went to see Him.
Oh he was awaiting. Funny how he knew I was coming for he left the doors opened for me and told his secretary to send me right in. When I got there he took me to his private workshop and closed the doors. He put all things aside so he could tend to my heart box. After examining every damage, every crack, every crevice and bringing to memory quite painfully the cause of each I had become so tired I couldn't breathe. He gently sang me songs and gave me only the best hot chocolate I ever tasted I recovered only all too quickly. The work still had to be done and I sat in despair at the condition of my heart box as he worked patiently.
When the maker had finished taking the box apart he stood up and looked at me. He smiled tenderly and took my hand and bid me to stand. I stood and followed him. He told me stories, heart box stories and he told me stories of his own heart box. Many of which had a feeling so deep it resonated in my spincal cord. He smiled. Many a stories he shall not tell yet, he said, for I have yet to even understand deep within me the ones he had told me so far. We entered a room inside his workshop where rows and rows of heart boxes sat. He stepped up the ladder and reached for the one with my name and he handed the beautiful heart box to me. I felt the smooth fragrant wood with my fingertips. He opened it and placed in it all things beautiful. He placed in it a picture of me and him we took years ago. He placed in it many a dreams and a precious picture of me in my wedding dress beside my groom. He deposited these pictures deep and locked the doors. He kept the keys and I nodded. No one would touch these he whispered. He then gave it to me. My heart box. Brand new. I remembered thinking, many a heart boxes, new and unclaimed by the names that should bear them. How I would send them here if I see them.
Take good care of it, he cautioned, and use it wisely. In it contains many surprises, you have yet to discover. The heart box was made uniquely with the maker's sweat and blood. In it it contains a part of me he whispered, to carry with you. I handed the box back to him afraid of the damage that may occur with it in my hands and he held his hand over mine and closed my fingers around it. I trust you, his voice rang loud and clear.
So with my new heart box in hand I lived each day, but I go and see its maker nearly everyday. He would mend its cracks that still happen and polished its surface. He would empty and clean its insides and he would make sure no termites got in. Some days he would find a rotten thing here and there, things I have picked up, and placed there for a while and he would clean it out and deposited something new in its place. More and more I grew less and less afraid to walk out the door with heart box in my hand.
I had to see him again today, with my heart box in hand. See him about them feelings. He opened again the deposit box with his keys and showed me the pictures in it. He reminded once again of the chats we have had and showed me the deposits he had made. He then opened and dug deep into the bototm left corner which he had clearly saved for last and in there I found pictures I had carefully, tenderly, saved for they were precious. And in there right in the bottom was the picture I have been working in my mind to perfect. The picture of two lovers, perfectly, purely in love. A picture that I had been waiting to find. Many a times I have tried looking for this picture that matches the one in my heart box.
My maker showed me a few other pictures stored in my heart box. Pictures close to this one. And the last picture was so close it was almost perfect. I recalled the time that picture was taken. I wondered why I never lived it out. I looked at my maker as he shook his head at the thought that maybe I have passed that picture by. He pointed at the two lovers and I saw it. In the perfect picture the two lovers were looking deep into each other's eyes, in this one their gaze passed by each other. They were looking past each other. I understood. Sometimes I long so much for the special heart box space to be filled, but those two gazing past each other, their heart box spaces are meant for another.
I looked at Him and nodded. Why then is my heart box still blue. Because he occupies a heart box space. I reach in to take the picture out but the maker stopped me. He took the picture out and coloured it in, and he put it in another space where it fit perfectly. It is ok to be blue. He put the picture back in,there's plenty of space in here he whispered while he gave me a hug and sent me back out there.
Hot chocolate in my hand I thought. The imperfect picture was still quite beautiful, and even if it didn't fill the space I wanted it to fill, it filled another perfectly. I looked down at my heart box. It's ok but yes I still feel blue.
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