Boxes

By Michael Gigandet

 

IMy sisters and I lived out of cardboard boxes which we placed around the walls of our apartments. Why unpack when you might flee again in the middle of the night?

Three boxes: one for shoes and socks, another for pants and underwear, the last for shirts and sweaters. I learned to plan ahead, replacing my boxes from the dumpsters behind the nearest shopping center with newer boxes so I was always ready.

Home was a place to park ourselves, a place to land and recover. When I turned 18, I left Home, my crying sisters and three cardboard boxes

 

Michael Gigandet from US is a retired lawyer in Tennessee. His stories have appeared in Bending Genres, Quarencia Press, Great Weather for Media, Palm Sized Press, Syncopation Literary Journal and The Hong Kong Literary Journal. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize this year.