Daily Prompt – Mystery Box

You wake up one morning to find a beautifully wrapped package next to your bed. Attached to it is a note: “Open me, if you dare.” What’s inside the mystery box? Do you open it?

The morning sun began to peek in through a gap of the curtain, shining directly into Laura’s eyes. She clenched her eyelids, let out a small groan and rolled over. In doing so, she felt something at the end of the bed. Still half asleep and with her eyes still closed, she moved her feet around under the doona, unsure of what it was, but it was certainly heavy. ‘It must just be the washing I folded last night and forgot to put away’, Laura thought to herself, before nudging the weight with her foot in an attempt to knock it off the bed.

She gave it one last kick, which was soon followed by a small crash. In her sleepy state, Laura lifted her head slightly, confused by the sound that echoed from the end of the bed, but didn’t concern herself enough to warrant actually getting up to investigate. She propped herself up on her side, re-fluffed her pillow, and lay back down, enjoying the warmth of the sun on the back of her head.

Soon, the room was illuminated with a blinding light, as the breeze picked up and opened the curtains. The light was simply too bright for her to continue to doze, so she rolled over again, facing the blinding sunshine, and as she grunted and groaned trying to shield herself from the sunlight, she kicked her legs wildly, forcing the doona off herself, and squirmed over to the edge of the bed. As the sheet began to gather underneath her, she sat up on the edge of the bed, and stumbled across the floor to the window. She closed the window, and drew the blinds, letting out a large sigh of relief at the instant darkness and coolness around her. She walked back over to the bed, falling face down onto the sheet, letting out another groan at the thought of having to move again to pick the doona up from off the floor.

Crawling across the mattress to the foot of the bed, she began pulling the closest edge of the doona up towards her, eventually revealing the box that she kicked off earlier. Laura sat there perplexed as to how it came to be in her room. She certainly didn’t bring it home with her, nor did anybody visit her to drop it off. She climbed off the bed to check the door to her apartment – it was still locked, and the chain was on, so nobody could have gotten in, or out for that matter. Laura walked over to the balcony, and discovered that the balcony door was locked as well. ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’, she murmured to herself.

Returning to the bedroom, she saw the large black box sitting there. It was immaculately presented. The box was quite glossy and had been wrapped with three different width ribbons. White, black and white, all nestled atop each other to create a stripe effect. The ribbons were tied in a elaborate and intricate series of bows, and we’re all perfectly shaped. There wasn’t one crease in any of the bows or the tails. Laura almost didn’t want to undo them, because it just looked so pretty, but the suspense was just too much for her. As she pulled the tail of one of the ribbons, the bows began to collapse and unravel, gently falling down around the sides of the box, and just as she was about to lift the lid, she quickly stopped herself, leaning in to place an ear close to the lid. As she listened cautiously for any ticking sounds, she let out a sigh of relief when she heard silence.

Slowly lifting the lid off the box, she was greeted by a small envelope and some precisely folded tissue paper. On the front of the envelope was ‘Laura’ which was hand-written, but wasn’t any handwriting she immediately recognised. Laura opened the envelope and pulled out a small card, the embossed message read:

For years you’ve asked questions and received no answers. Now is the time to know the truth. Love, always.

Underneath was a small ‘X’, in the same handwriting as the front of the envelope. Placing the card by her side, Laura carefully unfolded the tissue paper, revealing more scrunched-up tissue paper. As she removed it from the box, discarding it onto the bedroom floor, her fingers suddenly felt something different. Something small and metallic. The cold metal surprised her fingertips, and she pulled out a small bronze spoon. Quickly glancing at it, Laura placed it beside her on the bed, before reaching back into the box. With each venture into the box she retrieved more small objects; booties, baby bracelets, photographs, and they were all nearly laid out around her on the bed, on her final grab within the box, Laura removed another envelope. This was larger than the first one, and considerably thicker, and as she studied all the small trinkets around her, she opened the envelope, removing the folded papers inside.

As Laura unfolded the paper, it opened to reveal a smaller and fragile piece of paper. It had holes in the creases and some of the edges were bent or ripped, but as she gently opened it out, her eyes were immediately drawn to the thick black font at the top, ‘Certificate of Birth’. feeling confused by this, Laura scanned all the object around her, and returned her gaze to the fragile birth certificate. She studied it intently, instantly looking for the actual date of birth, “Huh! Who’s Mabel? …she has the same date of birth as mine… Maybe I have a sister? Oh my god, what if I had a sister?” a smile washed over her face, and with excitement she read and re-read every single word on that page at least four or five times. Nothing made sense to her, except the birthdate, so she decided to give herself a moment to clear her head.

She packed up everything into the box, and carried it out to the coffee table in the living room. Standing in the kitchen, pouring herself a warm cup of yesterday’s coffee from her percolator, Laura stood there staring at the glossy ebony box, completely baffled as to where it came from or what it meant.

Sitting cross-legged on floor in front of the coffee table, she brought the box down to the ground, and carefully unpacked all the contents and laid it out on the glass top. She got to the letter and the birth certificate, and decided to take some time to slowly read this letter.

Dear Mabie,

I’m hoping that this finds you safe and well. I know that it must be a very confusing time for you, and you’re probably wondering what all of this means. I know that you’ve had a lot of questions growing up as to who you are, and your family etc., and it’s now time for you to know the TRUTH, not all the lies you’ve been continually fed over the years.

 

First of all, as you can tell by the birth certificate I’ve enclosed, you’re REAL name, your birth name was Maybelle Lauranne Smithson. It was then changed by deed-poll to Laura Smith, when you were put up for adoption.

Continuing to read the letter, it wasn’t long before Laura was reaching for a tissue, as the first of countless tears slowly tumbled down over her cheek. The letter explained in quite a lot of detail about how she ended up being put into foster care and then adoption when she was only a toddler, which explained why she had so many strange and unexplainable memories from her early childhood. It detailed the issues of her (then) drug addict father, and her psychotic, gun wielding mother. It also went on to explain that both of them had since passed away. Her father from a heroin overdose in the early nineties and her mother ended up shooting herself, her then boyfriend, his ex wife, and their three kids in a murder-suicide, also in the early nineties. Laura discovered that she also has two siblings: a younger sister who was born three years after Laura, and who was put up for adoption from birth, who is still with the same family, and lives in another state; and a younger brother, who was born six years after Laura, who unfortunately died at seven months old. He was beaten with a telephone book, wrapped up in a shopping bag, and left under a pile of wet mouldy towels in the bathroom. His body was discovered during a drug raid on the premises, but the parents had already abandoned the property.

Overcome with emotion and grief, Laura broke down uncontrollably on the carpet of the living room, crying herself to sleep from the shock of these revelations. She awoke to darkness. Small tear-soaked patches of carpet remained underneath her face, whilst the letter was still in her hand.

What she couldn’t determine was the origin of this box. Who had sent it? Who was this person with all the answers, and how the hell did it appear in Laura’s apartment? If her parents were both dead, and had been for quite some time, then who was this mystery person?

Laura heard a small rustle echo down the hallway, and sprung to her feet to race towards the door. Pausing momentarily to look through the peephole, she saw nobody and quickly unlocked and unchained the door, flinging the door open and bursting into the building corridor. It was empty. She ran down towards the lift, pressing the button, and the doors opened in front of her revealing an empty lift. Maybe they took the stairs? she flung open the fire door to the stairwell, listening intently to any footsteps, but heard nothing.

Confused and frustrated, Laura walked back down the corridor to the entrance to her apartment, stopping to look at the envelope on the floor of her hallway. She stood there staring at the front of this envelope, staring at the word ‘Laura’ written on the front in the same handwriting as the letter that was in the box. Feeling somewhat spooked by this, she cautiously bent down to pick it up, slowly flipping it over in her hands. Laura took a deep breath as she meticulously opened the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper inside.

Maybelle (Laura),
I can imagine that you’re feeling quite unsettled by all the news, and overwhelmed with emotion. I apologise for all the mystery, but you need time to process all of this information properly. I look forward to meeting you soon. X.

Hmmm, maybe this person lives in the building? But if they did, how do they know who I am? How did they disappear so quickly? Oh shit, what if it’s one of the neighbours? But how did they get in with the box? Laura’s thoughts began spiralling out of control at a rapid rate, and the more she thought about it, the more questions she began asking herself. Deciding that she needed a distraction, she dressed herself and grabbed her handbag, the letter and the birth certificate from the box, and headed out the door to go do some research on her own.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/mystery-box/

7 Nov – Holiday Avoidance

Where is the one place you would never want to go on vacation that other people seem to love?

 

Bali.

15 July – Scandal

Kerry Washington is speaking at the conference next week. What do you think has been the biggest scandal so far in this decade?

 
Well in terms of Australia, there’s been quite a few ‘scandals’.

Apr 9 – Scandalous Double Standards

Do you think there are a lot of double standards between men and women when it comes to scandals?

I don’t necessarily believe that there is. Yes, I agree that there are countless double standards between men and women generally speaking, however, when it comes to a scandal, I think it’s a relatively fair playing field – man, woman, it doesn’t matter. Once the word ‘scandal’ is involved, then it’s open warfare with the media. They will tear anybody apart across the front pages of the tabloids, regardless of whoever they are, and what gender they are.

If anything, I think that, again, generally speaking, there are more scandals in the media involving men, simply because men are stupid enough to be doing something scandalous in the first place. What was the last big ‘scandal’ in the media involving a woman?

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is the one revolving around Nigella Lawson not being allowed into the US because she admitted to having used drugs in her past. Granted, this was also following on from her two former employees trying to get their own five minutes of fame claiming that she was quite the nasty horrible drug pig, AND this was after she was photographed in public being choked by her husband.

…but apparently it was all about Nigella, rather than Mr Saatchi… y’know, the guy with his hands around her throat… in public…!! But yes, let’s not focus on that… Nigella’s drug use is MUCH more important.

What a bunch of sexist crap.

 

Apr 7 – Public Scandal

Is there a particular public scandal that intrigued you? 

Public scandals are why I love the media, and also why I hate the media.

Most of the time the media take a story and slap on the term ‘scandal’ generally as a means to sell more papers, or attract more viewers to a news / current affairs show.

Australia has had more than it’s fair share of ‘scandals’, however none of them have really intrigued me. I was just looking over a list of ‘scandals’ and there are quite a few that grabbed my eye.

Firstly, I think that the most prominent one in Australia most recently was the Essendon Football Club drug scandal. Basically, the club was investigated for usage of prohibited supplements, which then blew up into a massive controversy and ending in the club being fined a record AU$2 million. As much as I can’t stand football (primarily because a) the sport is ridiculous and b) because it’s pretty much a religion in this country), I was quite surprised that this had even come to light. What surprised me the most was that there were all these people saying how shocked they were at just the concept that there could even be drugs in sport.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Drugs and sport go together like cake and buttercream frosting. It’s that simple. These people are either so completely ignorant as to what is going on in their own clubs, or they’re trying to cover it up.

The next major scandal at the moment has been the Craig Thomson Union Fund scandal. Basically the crux of this scandal was that this guy, Craig, used his Union credit card and spent a truck load of union-members’ money on all kinds of stuff that he shouldn’t have, including paying for prostitutes and escorts. I think what I was the most surprised by, was finding out that hookers accept credit-card payments… I just thought they were cash-only.

I guess it puts a whole new spin on the phrase ‘swipe your card’…

There was a massive overseas scandal on the usage of horsemeat in consumer foods. This was something that actually did concern me, because I couldn’t believe that people would even consider eating horsemeat – just the thought of it grosses me out. But humans are cannibals, and will eat all kinds of animals, regardless of how big or small they are. When this scandal broke in the media, we were buying meat from Aldi, which was one of the major stores involved, so we immediately stopped buying from there as a precaution, and sourced our meat directly from a butcher.

Also in overseas news, there was the whole phone-hacking ordeal with Rupert Murdoch sitting right at the very top of it all. I think that it was great for something like this to come to light; exposing the underhanded ways and lengths the media will go to in order to get juicy details for their next big story. It’s just disgusting, and ever since then, I’ve stopped engaging in numerous News Corp holdings… well, except Australian Good Taste and Donna Hay magazine… what can I say, food is my weakness.

I think the last major one that made me groan and rolls my eyes in sheer disbelief at the sheer ignorance of the case was that involving the cases of sexual abuse within the catholic church. For as long as I can remember, there’s always been constant commentary regarding priests and abuse of children, predominantly young boys. Priests had / still have a stigma attached to them as being paedophiles, and the church knows all about it, but covers it up etc etc. So imagine my lack of shock and surprise when this ‘scandal’ was brought up in the media. Parliamentary inquiries, Royal Commissions investigating numerous claims of abuse… it was as though this issue that society, in general, had been talking about for years and years was only NOW starting to actually be taken seriously enough to warrant proper investigations.

Are you kidding me?

And people are behaving as though this information is all so sudden and brand new, and so completely inconceivable. Which, in turn, makes me even sadder about people and society. How could you be so oblivious and ignorant of this?

Look, I can appreciate that many victims have been haunted and tormented by the memories of what happened to them, and I can appreciate that they may not necessarily want to come forward and put the spotlight on themselves for a multitude of reasons, but they also need to understand that unless people like them actually say something, nothing is going to change. Those within the church will still abuse their power and position; children are still going to be abused; nobody will say anything about it, and the cycle will just continue as it has for however many years.

And the worst part of it all, is that if a child dare say anything or speak out about it, then who knows what the consequences could / would be. Maybe the child would be labelled as being a liar, and a Son of Satan – and then barraged with passages from the Bible, and made to repent for sins that are not his.

Unfortunately, the cynic in me can’t help but assume that this kind of abuse will never stop. Priests will always be protected by the Church, and let’s face it, the Church is a law unto themselves. It’s unfortunate, but this is just another reason as to why I cannot stand religion, ESPECIALLY Catholicism / Christianity. I think that the Catholic Church is perhaps one of the most evil and underhanded organisations in the world.

 

Daily Prompt: Good Fences?

Who are your neighbors? Are you friends with them, barely say hi, or avoid them altogether? Tell us a story — real or invented — about the people on the other side of your wall (or street, or farm, or… you get the point). 

First of all, let’s start by spelling it properly – n-e-i-g-h-b-o-u-r-s… thank you.

I have no idea who our neighbours are.

Well, I know that the people on one side are a bunch of junkies and / or dealers. The people on the other side of us… no idea.

We live in a modern apartment building – there’s about 40+ apartments in here, and surprisingly, the only time I ever see anybody is when we’re driving into the carpark, or we see them in the lift.

The people above us have wooden floorboards. We hear every time they drop something, if somebody is wearing stilettos, or if they’re dragging a chair across the floor. It’s actually pretty loud, so clearly there’s not enough soundproofing in their floor / our ceiling.

It’s not actually like that, but sometimes it may as well be – we hear every footstep and it can be quite annoying.

The junkies next door have always got really dodgy-looking people hanging around their apartment. Sometimes I will come home and see a couple of junkies just hanging out in the hallway, waiting for somebody to either answer the door, or worse, waiting for somebody to come home. Or, instead they’re down in the building foyer, waiting for anybody to exit through the front door, so they can sneak in.

Let’s just say it’s starting to not become so unusual for us to see cops not just in our building, but on our floor. A couple of times we’ve had them knock on the door wanting to know if we’ve seen anybody suspicious.

OF COURSE WE HAVE!! It’s just that but the time you guys turn up, they’re gone.

Just this past weekend, some woman who was clearly barely able to stand, let alone string a sentence together knocked on our door. I, naturally, just assumed it was the police, so was quite startled when I saw this raggedy woman standing in front of me. I think she asked if it was ‘Larry’s place’, and I’m like… hehehehe… no. On your way, crack-whore.

Turns out she was with a guy and Hulk saw them on his way home on the other side of the road. She was trying to talk to him, and he wasn’t having a bar of it.

Sometimes I think about actually getting to know our neighbours, but then I realise that I really just can’t be fucking bothered. Most people in here generally keep to themselves, but to the point where they don’t even say ‘Hello!’ in the lift if there’s somebody in there. As though they don’t even exist. So to me, yes, organising something like a group BBQ or something would be nice, however, I really don’t care if I never meet our neighbours.

I do however really want to name-and-shame the people who let their dogs pee in the lift.

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD!!

There is nothing worse that going to get in the lift, and discovering a huge puddle of pee. It gets to the point where all I want to do is hijack the security footage, find out who’s dog it is, soak up all the pee, and throw it it in the face of our dear inconsiderate neighbour. But the reality is, if I were to do that, I’d be the one who ends up in the wrong, but the dog owner is totally okay.  What’s worse is that there’s not even a slight attempt to even clean it up, which drives me nuts. And I don’t mean to point the finger (which, let’s face it, is a complete lie) but it’s only a particular race of people who live here… I’d happily name them, but then I think it becomes racial and offensive to people. ugh. If you’re still not sure who I might be talking about, then they’ll probably bundle their dog up into their Toyota before hitting the road and being a terrible driver. …what? Stereotypes don’t come from nowhere!! Remember that!!

It’s worse when the pee doesn’t get cleaned straight away, and instead ends up completely dried and sticky, and it gets tracked all over the floor in the lift and the foyers because people don’t realise they have stepped into it.

Ironically, we found out purely by chance with our real estate agent, that our building is actually the worst of all the buildings they they manage. Awesome. Part of me wants to look into moving now that our lease is ready for renewal, but I’d only want to stay in this immediate vicinity, just in a different, cleaner building. Without the junkies and the constant dog-pee.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/daily-prompt-neighbors/