It was difficult to imagine a time before them, a world in which they hadn’t come.
But when they first appeared, in March, nobody had any idea what to do with them, these strange little boxes that came with the spring.
Every other box, at every stage in people’s lives, had a clear meaning, a set course of action. The shoebox holding a shiny new pair to be worn on the first day of school. The holiday present crowned with a looped red ribbon, skillfully curled on a scissor’s edge. The tiny box with the long-dreamt-of diamond inside, and the large cardboard packages, sealed with tape and labeled by hand, loaded into the back of the moving truck. Even that final box, resting under the earth, whose lid, once shut, would never be opened.
Every other box felt familiar, understandable, expected even. Every other box had a purpose and a place, fitting comfortably within the course of a typical life.
But these boxes were different.
They came at the start of the month, on an otherwise ordinary day, under an otherwise ordinary moon, too early to blame the March equinox.
And when the boxes came, they came for everyone, all at once.
Small wooden chests—at least, they looked wooden—that emerged overnight, millions and millions of them, in every town and every state and every country.
The boxes appeared on finely mowed lawns in the suburbs, nestled between hedges and the first blooms of the hyacinth. They sat atop well-trampled doormats in the cities, where decades of tenants had passed through the threshold. They sank into the warm sands outside tents in the desert and waited near lonely lakeside cabins, gathering dew in the breeze off the water. In San Francisco and São Paulo, in Johannesburg and Jaipur, in the Andes and the Amazon, there wasn’t anywhere, or anyone, that the boxes couldn’t find.
There was something both comforting and unsettling about the fact that every adult on earth suddenly seemed to be sharing the same surreal experience, the ubiquity of the boxes both a terror and a relief.
Because, in many ways, it was the same experience. In nearly every manner, these boxes were identical. All were dark brown in color, with reddish tints, cool and smooth to the touch. And inscribed on every box was a simple, yet cryptic message, written in the native tongue of its recipient: The measure of your life lies within.
Within each box was a single string, initially hidden by a silvery white piece of delicate fabric, so even those who lifted the lid would think twice before looking at what lay underneath. As if the box itself were warning you, trying to protect you from your own childish impulse to immediately tear away the wrapping. As if the box were asking you to pause, to truly contemplate your next move. Because that one could never be undone.
Indeed, the boxes varied on only two accounts.
Each small chest bore the name of its individual recipient, and each string inside measured a different length.
But when the boxes first arrived that March, amid the fear and the confusion, nobody quite understood what the measure truly meant.
At least, not yet.
Spring
When the box inscribed with Nina’s name appeared outside her door, Nina was still asleep in bed, her eyelids twitching slightly as her dormant mind wrestled with a difficult dream. (She was back in high school, the teacher demanding to see an essay that Nina had never been assigned.) It was a familiar nightmare for someone prone to stress, but it was nothing compared to the one awaiting her in the waking world.
Nina woke up first that morning, as she usually did, and slid off the mattress, leaving Maura undisturbed in her slumber. She slipped into the kitchen, still wearing her plaid pajama set, and switched on the burner under the plump orange teakettle that Maura had found at a flea market last summer.
The apartment was always deliciously quiet at that early hour, the silence only interrupted by the occasional hiss of a droplet escaping from the lid of the teapot and landing with a sizzle among the low flames of the stovetop. Later, Nina wondered why she hadn’t heard any commotion that morning. There were no screams or sirens or televisions blaring, nothing to alert her to the chaos already unfolding outside her home. If Nina hadn’t turned on her phone, then perhaps she could have stayed in the stillness for just a while longer, savoring the time before.
But instead she sat on the couch and looked at her phone, the way she started every morning, expecting to read a handful of emails and scroll through various newsletters until Maura’s alarm went off and they debated eggs or oatmeal. It was part of Nina’s job as an editor to keep herself informed, but the sheer number of apps and outlets had grown with every year in the role, and it sometimes overwhelmed Nina to think that she could spend an entire lifetime reading and never keep up.
That morning, she didn’t even have a chance to start. As soon as she unlocked the home screen, Nina knew something was wrong. She had three missed calls from friends, and the texts had been piling up for hours, mostly from her fellow editors in their group message.
WTF IS HAPPENING?!
Did everyone get one???
They’re EVERYWHERE. Like the whole world. Holy FUCK.
Is the inscription for real?
Do NOT open until we know more.
But inside is just a string, right???
Nina felt her chest constrict, her head tingling with dizziness, as she tried to piece together the full story. She clicked over to Twitter, then to Facebook, and it was all the same, filled with question marks and all-caps panic. But this time, there were photos. Hundreds of users posting pictures of small brown boxes outside their doors. And not just in New York, where she lived. Everywhere.
Nina could make out the inscription in a few of the photos. The measure of your life lies within. What the hell did that mean?
Her heart was beating alarmingly fast, keeping pace with the questions in her head. Most of the people online, faced with the same obscure message on the box, had quickly rallied around a single, terrifying conclusion: Whatever was waiting inside that box claimed to know just how long your life would last. The time you’d been allotted, by whatever powers may be.
Nina was about to scream and wake up Maura, when she realized that they must have received them, too.
She dropped her phone on the couch, fingers trembling, and stood up. She walked to the front door of the apartment, a little woozy on her feet, then took a deep breath and peered through the peephole, but she couldn’t see down to the floor. So she slowly unhooked the double lock and timidly opened the door, as if a stranger were waiting on the other side, asking to be let in.
The boxes were there.
Sitting on the doormat with the Bob Dylan quote that Maura insisted upon bringing with her when she moved into Nina’s place. “Be groovy or leave, man.” Nina probably would have preferred something simpler, a neutral lattice mat, but that quote always made Maura smile, and after weeks of trudging home to it, Nina had grown to love it, too.
Covering most of the cursive blue lettering on the mat sat a pair of wooden-looking chests. One for each of them, apparently.
Nina looked down the hall and saw an identical box waiting for their neighbor in 3B, an elderly widower who only came out once a day to toss his trash. She wondered if she should alert him. But what would she possibly say?
Nina was still staring at the boxes at her feet, too nervous to touch them, yet too shocked to leave, when the whistle of the kettle roused her from her trance and reminded her that Maura
received them, too.
She dropped her phone on the couch, fingers trembling, and stood up. She walked to the front door of the apartment, a little woozy on her feet, then took a deep breath and peered through the peephole, but she couldn’t see down to the floor. So she slowly unhooked the double lock and timidly opened the door, as if a stranger were waiting on the other side, asking to be let in.
The boxes were there.
Sitting on the doormat with the Bob Dylan quote that Maura insisted upon bringing with her when she moved into Nina’s place. “Be groovy or leave, man.” Nina probably would have preferred something simpler, a neutral lattice mat, but that quote always made Maura smile, and after weeks of trudging home to it, Nina had grown to love it, too.
Covering most of the cursive blue lettering on the mat sat a pair of wooden-looking chests. One for each of them, apparently.
Nina looked down the hall and saw an identical box waiting for their neighbor in 3B, an elderly widower who only came out once a day to toss his trash. She wondered if she should alert him. But what would she possibly say?
Nina was still staring at the boxes at her feet, too nervous to touch them, yet too shocked to leave, when the whistle of the kettle roused her from her trance and reminded her that Maura still didn’t know.
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