Our box sits alone on the edge of the forest, far from any houses, with the exception of one. That one is no more than a hundred yards away. The owner said we can sneak into the crawlspace when the storms roll in, which they inevitably do after four o’ clock. The box shakes in blistering winds and although the temptation to shelter is great,  I would rather ride out the tempest in our box. My dog fears the crawlspace and I will not abandon her.

Our box is five feet wide and eight feet long, with an A frame roof made of tin. The afternoon rains drum upon it endlessly. The sound lulls me to sleep on a bed that is never clean. My dog and me and Callie carry dirt on our feet and paws that collects in streaks on otherwise white sheets. The scent of sweet grass emanates from her when I close my eyes and rest my head against her. She breathes softly when she sleeps, and so do I, our inhalations synchronized. 

Before we came to the woods, our box sat nestled behind a fence in an old neighborhood dotted with ranch style houses with cracked driveways and aging paint. The day we raised the wall around our box, my fingers and toes froze and the windows glazed with ice and haze hung in the air with every breath. Although we had no heat, we shared our warmth with each other under heavy quilts. Callie was almost happy. We were romantic pragmatists, she said, living free while others were wedded to leases and mortgages.. I did not remind her that the landlord chose for us cold showers in the yard, the day he said that we had to leave our apartment. Our lives were a shared secret, hidden away behind the wooden barrier that we built to keep the world far away.

One morning, the police came at the behest of a not so neighborly neighbor who knew nothing of the lives we led, nor cared to understand. They handed me a sheet of paper that read “this structure is not fit for human habitation”. That is the law, they said, and you have to comply with law. We had no choice but to carry our box to the edge of the pines. 

The forest affords none of the luxuries that we once enjoyed behind the fence. We have no running water and we have to piss in the moonlight as the coyotes howl beyond the tree line. I do not want to be on the edge of the woods, but I have my dog and she keeps the night at bay. As the days grow longer and the heat of the sun makes the box less cozy and more claustrophobic, the three of us spend more time outside, smoking cigarettes and chasing balls.  But when the sun disappears beyond the horizon, a creeping sense of desperation begins to take hold. It is a feeling that all box dwellers know, that the forest will eventually grow beyond its borders and take back what once belonged to nature. The sense of dread is easily relieved by the touch of warm bodies on either side of me.I fall asleep knowing morning will come. Until I awake and it hasn’t. 

That’s why I am here. 

Barefoot, standing outside in the dead of night. 

Night weighs heavy upon me and I am drowning in the humid air. I look toward the house with the crawlspace and see nothing but infinite darkness. The same darkness that pervades that space, swallows the trees, consumes my box and then, strangles me. The desperation, which in its infancy was barely perceptible, is now all encompassing, a child of the dark. Callie looks pleadingly at the box, its wooden door unmoved by her beseeching gaze.There is no where to go. No one to call. There is no place to hide. The door is locked. The box is inaccessible. 

The heat is dreadful. 

Cicadas scream endlessly in the empty spaces between the trees.

Perhaps we can walk along the empty roads and find a phone to call for help, Callie suggests. I nod in agreement although I know that our effort is bound to be fruitless. I have no shoes. I wish I had shoes, as Callie has shoes, but the door is locked and I cannot I retrieve a pair. There are bits of cardboard and chicken wire near the old Ford that rests on cinder blocks at the forest edge. I fasten them to my feet to protect me against the warm earth with its bits of rock and broken glass that threaten to tear my skin. I bleed as I walk. Pain is a welcome respite from the cascade of grief, manifest in tears and sweat that fall freely from my cheeks. 

The night is alive. 

Nothing is dead but my dog.