week in a flash (week 4)

1. I watched two awesome movies this week.  One was awesomely good (btw if you ever want to hear Kate Hudson sing, rent Nine, it rocks!) and the other was awesomely bad, I knew it would be that’s why I rented it. :D

2. Have you ever had moments when you felt wise beyond your years and then had moments where you felt extremely immature?

3. A few years back I started doing this thing where I say to myself “I love my life, I love my life, I love my life,” I started doing it because I noticed than as soon as I started focusing on how everything was going wrong it was easy to fall into a depressive, dark way of thinking where I would start saying things to myself like “I hate my life” and other such things that I won’t deign to put in print ’cause they don’t belong in my head.  I don’t say “I love my life, I love my life, I love my life” to try to erase anything that might be going wrong or anything that’s hurtful to me or to convince myself that things will get better; it’s just a way to remind myself that I’ve got a reason to live and that HE’s always with me.  Sooo…I love my life, I love my life, I love my life.

4. My bro may disown me for saying this but the Twilight saga has got some great characters…too bad they are stuck in one of the worst stories ever written.

5. With regards to a week two comment I made about people, I also want to say that people can also be amazingly compassionate and just plain nice.

6. My summer class starts in a few weeks.  I’m a little nervous.

7.Would you hate me if I said that I actually like Tim Burton’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and absolutely hate the book?

8. Two of the best sounds in my world at the moment – the crack of thunder, just the way it rumbles and rolls across the sky and how everything trembles and shakes when it’s really loud – in my opinion there is nothing more breathtaking, terrifying and beautiful all at the same time, love it!  And the sound Jack (my Jeep) makes when it accelerates, the raw horsepower and the strength is thrilling.  Granted Jack doesn’t corner like it’s in the Indy 500 the way Baby (my Honda) did but I love ‘im anyway.  (Yes I name my cars, get over it :D)

9. Happy Father’s Day mi padre! (and all the other wonderful fathers out there)

10. Even though you are underway right now and probably won’t see this for a few more weeks, Hippo Birdies bro!!

Open the Box

“Open the box.”  It wasn’t a request, it was a demand.  And one I could not afford to ignore or question.  I reached out and picked up the box and stood for a moment with it in my hands.  “Open the box.”  The demand rang out again.  I looked down at the box; it was a plain brown box with a wide purple ribbon tied around it.  It almost looked like a Christmas present.  But that was impossible.  And I knew it; Christmas didn’t exist here.  “Open the box.”  The demand would not go away until I obeyed it.  I couldn’t refuse but I couldn’t obey.  “Open the box.”  I was in trouble and they knew it.  I lifted the box to look underneath it.  The ribbon didn’t have a beginning or an end.  It was like it was part of the brown box.  I frowned.  I turned the box around looking for some sort of opening that I could use as a peephole to see what was inside.  “Open the box.”  I vaguely wondered how long they would wait for me to open the box.  I continued to turn the box around.  There were no seams, no taped flaps; the box was a solid piece with the wide purple ribbon wrapped around it with no seams or un-tieable bows.  I shook my head and looked in front of me with an eyebrow raised.  “Open the box McConnell.”  I began to shake.  I can’t.  I put my ear up to the box but there was no sound, nothing shifted, nothing ticked, nothing rattled, nothing crinkled, nothing happened.  I looked back up.  I started to put the box down on the floor.  “OPEN THE BOX.”  The demand blasted through the room and shook the walls.  I gasped and put my hands and the box over my ears.  I took my hands and the box away from my ears.  Silence.  My ears were ringing and I began to tremble violently.  I shook the box.  Nothing.  It felt heavy though.  It weighed in my hands like sin.  “Open the box.”  I looked up and opened my mouth.  A screeching noise resounded in the room.  I put my hands and the box up to cover my ears again.  The screeching noise grew louder.  I looked over in amazement at my hand.  The box was making a noise.  I shut my mouth.  The noise stopped.  “Open the box.”  I shook the box violently.  Nothing.  I opened my mouth again as if to say something.  The screeching started again.  I put my ear up to the box.  The screeching continued.  But nothing shifted inside the box.  I closed my mouth.  Silence.  “Open the box.”  I shook my head.  “Open the box.”  I tried to untie the bow on top but it was like trying to untie your shoelaces when your fingers are frozen.  I tried to pull the seamless ribbon away from the box but that was like separating a five-year-old from a piece of candy.  I tried to tear through the un-ribboned sides of the box.  It seemed to give a little under my fingernails.  “Open the box.”  I dug in harder.  My fingernails began to splinter.  I felt blood on my fingertips.  But the box was giving under the pressure.  I continued to dig and scratch and claw and bleed at it.  A piece of the box came peeling off and fell on the floor.  “Open the box.”  I bent down and picked it up.  It had the color of cardboard but it didn’t look like cardboard.  “Open the box.”  I tore my eyes away from the piece of the box and looked at the portion of the box that I had been clawing at.  It pulsed.  I shivered and reached out my hand toward the dying portion of box.  I touched it and gritted my teeth.  It felt like flesh.  I closed my eyes and began to claw again.  “Open the box.”  My clawing grew desperate.  I moaned softly as more pieces of the box peeled off and fell to the floor.  The screeching sound made a small appearance, then subsided.  I continued to claw.  The box was coming apart.  “Open the box.”  My fingers suddenly met with no resistance.  I opened my eyes, there was a small hole in the box.  The ribbon had turned black.  The box was no longer brown but a bright, sickly red color.  I shuddered and put a finger in the hole and pulled.  The box opened and a bright white light spilled out.  I screamed and the world ended.