The boy was stuck in the purblind oven for seven days, a - PDF document

The Iron Box The boy was stuck in the purblind oven for seven days, a nd on that seventh day, he caught a troubled cockroach who wandered in through a crack in the oven’s door, and the boy ate the cockroach. The bug was cold and crunchy and popped in his mouth when he chewed down upon its shingled shell. And because the bo y hadn’t had any food during his entire captivity, he didn’t at all mind the lingering aftertaste of rotten potato skins which the bug had left behind in his dry mouth. On that seventh and fortuitous day, the boy couldn’t rest because he craved more and m ore and more creeping cockroaches and sought to find them in the dark even if it meant severing each and every finger while shoving them through that tiny slit in the door. The darkened oven was two feet high and three feet deep at best. It was large eno ugh to roast an adult pheasant, a pan of turnip leak pudding, or a small boy. Inadequate cleaning had left behind crispy burnt crumbs in its corners which had attracted the intruding cockroach. Why the boy had never picked at and nibbled on the crumbs du ring those seven days of captivity is as mysterious as how he suddenly got trapped inside the iron prison itself. Even he couldn’t remember the exact moment of confinement but what he did know was that a living cockroach, just off the hunt of insect dropp ings in the larder, tasted almost as good as the gingerbread juices embedded in the recent memory of his taste buds. As the hours passed since the catching and devouring of his first cockroach, the boy grew more and more predatory in his attempts to secu re his next meal. He figured out that if he put his ear to the ground (really, the iron base of the oven), he might pick up a slight vibration or sound which would alert him to move swiftly and stealthily after his next prey. If he were lucky, one of the cockroach’s antenna or threadlike legs might brush across his cheek or forehead, thus alerting him. Then he would be sure to know he were not alone in the dark. The rotten taste of his first cockroach, see, had left an unsatisfied yearning in the bottom of his gut so it was a matter of consequence to now stay awake to greet his next guest. And so he waited. And waited. In the dark. In the silence. With hunger crying from a pit once unfamiliar, the boy lay motionless on the iron floor. What he wouldn’ t give now for what he once knew: a stolen turnip, an unearthed radish, a week - old slice of salt bread. Anything to overturn the pain he was experiencing. One cockroach merely fed a newfound obsession for what he was lacking, and it was this nascent sta ge in his propelled maturity which would indelibly mark a compulsion for dissatisfaction that would plague the uneven course of his long life. Even years later as a high - ranking postmaster of his affluent burg, fear of dearth would disrupt his sense of co ntinence, and the delight which one might imagine from a celebratory holiday feast of cabbage cakes, lentil soup with fresh parsnip, boiled goose kidneys wrapped in streaky bacon, and wild juniper berries floating in dark treacle atop walnut dumplings coul d not temper this misattunement. It would be seven days and one cockroach for the rest of his long life. Truly, and paradoxically, with silent darkness all around, the boy had never known such loneliness and now such tumult. A discordant orchestra of cl anging sounds jangled his attempted concentration, and buzzing on the left and ringing on the right initiated an alarming hiatus that derailed his hunt for new prey. What was it about the darkness that could create such a racket? How was he ever going to lure another cockroach inside this iron box of reboantic noise as long as his head screamed as it did? And in concert with the clattering in his head, a twitch in his left leg from lying motionless for seven days in a contained space no larger than a buc ketful of cats began to animate the silent prison, and if the boy had any chance at all of catching another cockroach, his own inadvertent thumping against the side of the oven would scare them away for sure. But he waited. And waited. And twitched. An d waited. And waited. Aurora had risen over the East seven times during the wretched boy’s captivity but the only dawning that would engage the boy’s mind was how fast he could now cup his right hand down upon an anticipated cockroach. He began t o quietly practice the action of snapping down his palm onto the charred floor, and hours would pass in this steady occupation. He figured that when the time came for a cockroach to slip in through the slit in the door again, he would be ready to capture it, as long as the bug couldn’t hear the clamoring in his head, of course. And maybe he wouldn’t eat the intruder so quickly. Maybe he would smack it around a bit in good play. Being alone in the dark for this amount of time invited company of any kind; in fact, the boy imagined keeping a cockroach with him in the box as long as his hunger could sustain the wanting. Rather than feeling hopelessly abandoned like a cottontail cast out of a warren of pygmy rabbits for greedily feeding on stored piles of li mited, communal nuts and seeds, the boy wondered how much harm he had lately afflicted upon his family with his ever - growing appetite. He did not mean to cause any trouble. He said his prayers at night before bed, he helped his sister jump out of the way of the skittish goats, why he even stopped sneaking sips of the dark lager beer his father had stored in the cellar. What punishment was he now serving? True, he enjoyed pulling the dog’s tail once in a while and, yes, he did tell that same sister last Christmas that if she didn’t hand over her holiday sugar stick, she might one day get lost in the woods with only red mushrooms to eat, but, on the whole, he thought of himself as a mindful boy. And then all this occurred and the boy lay in misery in an i ron box with only his hand for a pillow. There was nothing in the Bible that warned against this. He had heard about poor Job, the man in the Old Testament who lost everything and wandered throughout the desert all alone. And as far as he knew, God sav ed Job from being alone forever. There were his own occasions, in fact, while lying in the flowery meadow on the mountaintop when the boy had sought the warm pleasures of solitude, usually by counting the yellow and brown honey bees or by tracking the ex act highway leading to the nearest formicary, but being alone in this box, with its absence of flowing fresh air, now introduced the strangeness of loneliness. And loneliness is not the same as being alone. Being alone helps one resuscitate a bit from th e chaos of the world, of which even little boys are aware, but loneliness, with its infinite nothingness, cuts off the breath of those boys who usually bound over rocky ridges and jump into the pebbled riverbeds that pool the wiggling tadpoles of boys’ uto pias. It was this nothingness which had now concentrated all of the boy’s attention. Could it be, he wondered, that God could see into the iron oven and still allow him to go hungry for seven days? Or were the surrounding woods so dense with oak and be ech that not even a glimpse of him in the darkness would alert the angels up above? God’s light revealed all, but here, there was nothing but nothing. God alone decides which boys will ascend to sunny Heaven to feast on honey - sweet pinecones and which one s will assist the devil in smashing up the mountainous icebergs down below in freezing Hell with their toes used as repentant ice picks, as he had been told repeatedly by the step - mother who now wore a black mantilla even outside of church. Her recent swa y over the household forewarned of the mischief inflicted by little boys, and her incessant sweeping out of any little creature or bug from their small dwelling in the clearing frightened this boy in imagining that she would one day, out of frustration, ta ke up the broom and disinfect him as well. If God knew he were being punished here, would He save him from a fate of sleeping atop Satan’s stalagmites so far from the warmth and light in Heaven? But all these worries would do him no good. He must concen trate on the crack in the door. If one cockroach entered, then another must follow. Whenever the boy had seen one hornet descend on a nettle bush, for example, another would soon appear. He had seen this a million times while walking through the forest: one hornet on one bush, then two, then three, and so on. That is why the boy kept his awaiting face on the floor in the iron oven. That is why he anticipated an end to his hunger. As he waited to bring down his cupped hand upon the next cockroach, the boy recalled how effective this type of snare had been last summer with the mice – really, just one mouse. A little gray one. When the cat Trauben had failed to return one day after entering the dark wall of forest trees near their tiny cottage, mice of all sizes and colors scurried out of the fields and into the thatched corners of the house (which greatly distressed his veiled step - mother). So to prove his worthiness to the family, the boy spent the next few days constructing a mouse - catching contrapti on which he called his mouse house – really, just a metal pail turned upside down with a string attached to its handle. The idea was that by propping up the pail with a stick, if a mouse then snuck under the pail to fetch the tiny slice of goat cheese he had so cleverly placed, the boy would pull on the string from his brilliant hiding place behind the log pile and drop the pail right down upon the pilfering culprit. The plan would have been a heroic success all summer long if only it hadn’t been for the evasive and suspicious nature of the little gray mice who tended to scamper away before the string was engaged, making the trap a near - failure – really, a huge failure, for the pail the boy used to catch the mice was his step - mother’s favorite pail, see, a nd when she found out how he had wasted his time and used up all her kitchen string with which she tied together the legs of her dinner foul, not to mention the ill - use of her pail, she screamed all night and beat him with an ox’s tail. But the boy shook t hese remembrances out of his head. He decided to act, so he stuck his finger in the hole in the door. The tip and nail of his left forefinger squeezed through easily enough but to his surprise, the boy was able to manipulate not only this topmost portion but the second joint just as well. Were his fingers shrinking? Earlier, only one joint had fit into the slit. Now – two! Perhaps the Lord was willing to rescue him by shrinking all of his body, piece by piece; after all, God, as he was told, grants oc ca s ional miracles. This happened last summer when the cat, before it went missing, climbed up the forbidden tree behind the old outhouse and ate two minutes worth of castor beans but survived anyhow since, as his father later explained, “God already has t oo many cats in Heaven.” If God had intervened with the cat, why shouldn’t He also with a boy? Nevertheless, the boy figured that not eating anything for seven days except for a thirty - second chewable cockroach must be the real cause of this change in hi s finger. And maybe in a day or two, with enough shrinking, his entire body would be able to pass through the crack in the door. These thoughts encouraged the boy, but a sudden fit of black and white dizziness seized him tightly and the boy passed out, h itting the ground with his left ear suctioning onto the floor, cutting off all sound but rescuing him still from that awful clanging in his head. During his two hours of dreamless sleep, a tiny black cockroach, the kind that fits easily into a little boy’s mouth, entered the iron box looking for a crumb or any possible burnt thing. It zigzagged diagonally across the floor, as cockroaches do when searching for food, and settled right under the boy’s chin. Its antenna detected a fleshy thing, albeit an ined ible one, so it crawled across the thing’s cheek and over its nose and down around its mouth to drop instinctively to the flat surface of the oven, whereby it quickly scampered back out the door. Without the cockroach, the oven remained quiet. And motionl ess. And the dark stillness in the box would have reminded a philosopher or anyone exploring the starry universe of that penultimate moment billions of years ago when time and space had yet to marry to create that miracle of recognizable life which animat es little boys, makers of ovens, and the cockroaches that crawl into them. When Chaos was in peace. And with the cockroach gone and the boy unconscious, the iron box existed without the purpose of having a purpose and it, in a sense, did not even exist. But because no urishing Nature abhors a vacuum, the iron box would soon sustain life, and in a short time, the boy awoke and found himself once again alone in the dark enclosure. Upon reanimating, the boy, to his surprise, detected something new: the warm nutty smell of almond tea cakes, similar to the ones he waited for each autumn when the days grew darker and there were fewer outdoor chores to perform. By early evening on such days, the family would gather around the stone hearth and listen to his fath er play a somber tune on the fiddle. If all went well (meaning that his step - mother, annoyed again over the boy’s spilling of some milk or tracking in a few fallen leaves onto her swept floor, would not cast him out into the cold and dark wind for an hour or two), the family would share a plate of roasted almonds powdered with local orris root or baked into simple cakes. But if all did not go well, the boy would be sent early to bed while his step - mother made sure to loudly stir the copper pot of goat’s m ilk, roasted almonds, and wheat flour and sing sweet songs of Mariolatry as she poured out plentiful servings. It was this rich smell of warm almonds which uplifted the boy from lying downcast on the floor of the iron oven. Almonds, see, had always been the favored nut of the boy and during those shadowy autumn afternoons, he would try to be especially obedient during the hour before the warm almond cakes were placed on the wooden dining table. His father sometimes noted how full of concentration he wou ld be while savoring each earthy bite. It was enough engagement for the family, in fact, to amusingly nickname him Nose because he could sniff out warm almonds like a hound after forest truffles. And it was this predilection for almonds that stirred the awakening boy in the box so that he did not even mind bumping his head on the roof of the oven in search of the source of the smell. Blinking the last bit of black and white dizziness out of his eyes, the boy quickly ran his fingers over the floor of his prison to locate the almond that he surely must have previously overlooked. Nothing. So, in hopes that one might be lodged somewhere in a nook or corner, he checked to his left and he checked to his right. Nothing. Perhaps in one of the corners behind him, but that would take some effort of movement, which was not in his favor, since he already fit so snuggly in the box like great - grandfather Wenzeslaus in the wooden coffin which was actually intended for his dying Lilliputian wife who had no need for i t after drowning herself in a riverbed of reeds to save the family “from the expense of it all,” as they all agreed. So with great difficulty to his back, legs, and arms, the boy did manage to turn himself around and he, thus, checked the remaining corner s. Nothing. God is a tricky god, the boy insisted, slamming his cupped hand down upon the ground. He made the cockroach to resemble the almond, and in the dark, they both feel quite similar in size and shape. Why couldn’t an almond have wandered in i nstead? But one cockroach was better than none at all, so with that modicum of continuing hope, the boy stuck the two joints of his finger through the crack in the door and wiggled them around to the outside universe. Upon finding nothing, he frowned and brought his finger back inside, lifted it to his nose, and smelled it. It did not smell like almonds at all, so the boy, now defeated and utterly hungry, collapsed against the side of the iron box. And just stared out into nothingness. What is it that mo tivates little boys to hope for silly things like rotten - tasting cockroaches, almond - scented fingers, and a bit of help from a forsaking God? What makes them think that out of the darkness may come some colliding moment of consequence to yaw the unfair co urse of their affairs? For seven long days, the boy had been trapped inside this cold iron box with nothing to eat but one troubled cockroach, which really doesn’t promise much nourishment for any kind of survival for anyone. What a silly boy – sticking his finger through a hole to search for an almond. What a silly boy – hoping for something out of nothing. Or does this boy, trapped so despairingly in an oven somewhere in a universe quite inconsequential to his trifling concerns, carry within his matter a five - billion year old trace of that erstwhile promise that while, yes, out of nothing does come nothing, nevertheless, there does occur every once in a rare while something out of something? And with a microscopic collision of chance and hope, this new something materializes into a recognizable form from which continual life may flourish. Would this little bit of hope for something encourage the boy to poke that finger in the hole one more time? So with an involuntary jerk of his left leg against the side of the oven, the boy stirred once again by reconfiguring his body and intent, and with some confidence, he took that diminishing finger and stuck it right through the crack in the oven’s door! He wrenched it, he twitched it, he stretched it ... nothi ng. Oh, the indestructible thread knotted so unjustly by the horrible Moirae! Could there also co - exist in the ambivalent universe a force which has woven boys’ fates so that even heroic determination cannot unlock this taut fabric? Does it take such Herculean effort to unravel such planned, entangled threads or do we in part allow the knots to form out of random collision to cut off the breath of tethered life ? And it was such a breath indeed that the boy expelled on this day – a breath, alas!, stillborn with anticipated hope. But this time, an unusual consequence occurred: when the boy moved to withdraw his finger, he found that he could not. A force beyon d his awareness had miraculously intervened in the boy’s fate, as the universe often dictates, for on this seventh and fortuitous day, the boy was not alone anymore. Coincidence or fate – what did it really matter, for the boy’s eyes widened in the dark ness and the chill that swam across his skin awakened a tingling which stirred his blood. Something out of something had grabbed hold of this little boy in the iron box. It was the boy’s own determination to exit which marked this momentous collision of his finger and the force which now held it. Alarmed and excited, the boy panicked a bit to imagine what invisible force had besieged him on the other side of the door. Had God intervened by sending down one of His angels in response to the prayers issu ed by his family back home? Or was his step - mother correct in knowing that the devil first selects those boys whose greed and gluttony for sweets like gingerbread and root meal rob the family of daily food? That was, after all, a consuming indulgence of his recent impudence when he voraciously attacked the strange, sugary - paned house in the middle of the heavy woods. Hunger, fright, and fatigue from wandering for days in a gnarled forest of deep - throated baying had compelled his fingers to eagerly grab a t the warm bread pudding plastered haphazardly on the window sill. At the time, he had figured that if he were not the determined one to raze the cottage bite by bite (in order to enter, as was his intent), then surely the truculent blue jays or bandit - ra ccoons would eventually succeed. After that, he found himself alone in the dark with a cockroach that tasted like rotten potato skins. But what was this new force on the other side of the box which held him so firmly? Could it be the divine intermedi ary to which he had prayed? Its power must surely be tremendous and frightful, he quivered. And then as when the stormy skies above the fields of hollyhock and raggleweed open up when picnicking prayers have been granted, the captive forefinger once agai n belonged to the boy. He jolted backwards with its sudden release and sat upright, stupefied in the quiet box. The boy tried to listen for any movement originating from outside but an orchestra of clanging weight returned to his head and a cacophony of ringing vibration intercepted his concentration. Frustration propelled his fisted hand to strike hard against the iron door. And just like that, in unexpected surprise, either planned by the fates in the universe or by mere coincidence, the door began to open outwards. They say that when the famous poet hundreds of years ago floated up to Heaven to behold the chaste woman he deified, the brilliant light of paradise absorbed the poet into the blessed hive of harmony. That sweet reunion between man and light did not occur in this instance, however, for the intruding light streaming into the oven by the opened door, blinded the boy and forced him to squint sharply in order to endure the pain to his eyes. The stinging, in fact, repelled his desire to escape, so that as long as his eyes burned as they did, he wanted nothing to do with the savior who had opened the door of his release. Was God’s light supposed to be so painful? Of course, his eyes did adjust, and in a few seconds, the boy was able to relook out the door. What mitigated the brightness of the light was an approaching figure emerging closer and closer to him, first in black, then in gray, and finally appearing in the fleshy color of a rotund angel with long, wispy curls. But this was mo re than an angel, the boy surmised. It was the Virgin Mary herself, sent by glorious God up above, to deliver him from this captivity in response to the prayers issued forth by his devote step - mother with the drawn veil. How he had mistakenly vilified hi s father’s new wife, who had once sent him on a journey through the dark, dangerous woods with nothing but a thin slice of stale salt - bread. He had spent that entire day diligently searching for the good kinds of mushrooms but when cold dusk retired the f alling rays of the sun, the boy could not locate his step - mother at the designated spot in the clearing from where they would all return safely home. Guilty feelings now struck the boy, for he must have been so wrong about his father’s new wife, and the p resence of the Virgin Mary, in her immaculate form now before him, attested to his step - mother’s prayerful relationship with the Lord. But when she spoke, the Virgin issued forth a voice as recognizable as the Bible on Sundays. “Brother, brother, it is I .” The boy cocked his head in confusion. How was it that the Blessed Virgin contained the high, sputtering sound of a little girl? So the boy leaned in closer to the figure to ascertain his uncertainty; after all, being trapped in a darkened iron box for seven days does distort one’s senses. Beholding the Virgin, he noticed an angel with a very white face. “It is I. Your sister. Come to rescue you from this oven.” If the boy’s brow had been any less furrowed, a litter of ermines could have still settl ed quite comfortably within its trenches. How could this be, he wondered. His own sister come to release him? Why, she couldn’t even chase down a refractory goat or lift its hind legs let alone rescue a boy as strong as himself. And as for wiliness, well, she had none. It was she, in fact, who had eaten her own slice of salt bread so early in the day and then spent the rest of their time in the forest pleading with him to share his ration. No, it couldn’t be his stupid sister. But there she was. Standi ng in the light. So fat now. Her face -- twice the size he had remembered! And with a smudge of white cream frosting resting on the edge of her lower lip. “Is that the frosting from the window sill?” t he boy asked. “Of course not,” laughed the girl. “This is fresh cream. I’ve had lots of it the last couple of days. The house is full of it!” Fury exploded inside the boy , and boiling blood gushed forth and swelled to his hot head and knuckled fingers. His eyes burrowed into his sister’s fat face and he gri tted his teeth like a snarling dog. “How long have you been here?” he asked slowly, staring at her lower lip. “Seven days. Like you,” she said, licking off more of the white cream. Seven days. Seven days with only one cockroach. A cockroach that tasted like rotten potato skins and crunched down inside his mouth in pure disgust (truth be told). But being the only meal to wander inside the oven, it was a meal most welcomed. And he waited and waited and waited for just one more bug to crawl inside, one mo re cockroach to satisfy his intense hunger. And then the smell of warm almonds, which drove him nearly mad, sent him on a frantic search for one tiny nut. Nothing. No second cockroach. No almond. But there she was. His own sister. Fat from feasting on white cream frosting. Warm bread pudding. Marshmallow pie. Juniper tarts in treacle custard. Sugar sticks. Nutmeg cookies. Gingerbread biscuits. And almond cakes! The light from the outside danced off the white frosting on his sister’s lip, stri king the flints of his fury. “You miserable little wench! You have been out there feeding your fat face while I have been stuck here starving?” The boy scrutinized the hateful chubbiness which padded his once - skinny sister. “How did you get all that foo d?” “Why, from the old woman who lived in this house,” she replied. The boy could not recall ever seeing an old woman. “Well, where is she now, sister? Tell me or I shall surely box your ears!” “She is dead, brother. I pushed her into the burning coals of the hearth because she wanted to fatten me up and eat me.” The little boy wondered whether it were better to die thin and starving with shrinking fingers or stuffed with lentil bean pie inside the belly of an old woman. His fingers were now half the size of his sister’s and he could clearly see from her enormity that she had benefitted greatly in the presence of the old woman. “I should have been the one to fatten up,” the boy flatly stated. “Oh, no, brother. She said she didn’t like to eat little boys because they cuss and fib and always jump about.” The boy r eflected on how little jumping about he had actually done in the last seven days. The oven was barely large enough to properly accommodate him when he was lying still and the longer he remained without food of any kind, the smaller the box actually seemed . “But, brother, I am here to rescue here,” the girl now timidly repeated, for this was not the reception she had anticipated. “Now listen to me, you pig!” the boy commanded. “While you have been gorging your face with all kinds of creamy pies and sweet s and no doubt handfuls of almond biscuits, I have been trapped inside this box with absolutely nothing to eat! Nothing! My body is shrinking to the size of a baby billy goat because I have had nothing to eat and all I have done in here is pray to Heaven that you, the sister I was instructed to protect, have been safe alone out there in the dark forest without my assistance. While I have waited and prayed to God above like Father and Mother have taught us, you have been feasting on creamy sugar icing and have quite forsaken me, thinking only of yourself! God punishes girls like that!” The girl, as if detecting the last bit of white frosting around her mouth, wiped her lower lip with her finger and coughed in order to redirect her brother’s gaze from her growing shame. “Now,” the boy continued, “you are going to help me get out of this oven and if you don’t do exactly as I say and just as quickly, I am going to summon the devil who will rise up to grab you by the throat and shove your fat, pig - like body in to piles of sharp, freezing ice in the pits of eternal Hell!” The girl gulped in fear. “Now get me out of here!”