Pretty Little Box

 She looked at the little plastic box in which the replacement battery arrived. It was a mundane battery for a phone. The type of thing that comes in whatever wrapping paper or cardboard box, usually a bundle involved in bubble wrapper tucked into a box way bigger than necessary. Not this one. It came into a perfect PET box made to size, secured inside of it with a transparent tape and the top of the box had a white ribbon to make it easy to hang the box on a store display. The label was clearly indicating the product contained in the box, its features in big font, to leave no doubt about the battery and its purpose in life. Of course, for a mail order, the same could be accomplished with the bigger standard cardboard box, the bubble wrapper and proper labels. There was no need for the pretty transparent box, the perfect silver label with black letters in large font and the white ribbon on top. But that perfect box lay on her dresser now emptied of its content, since the battery is already in use. She couldn’t  throw away beauty. Nevertheless, there she was. She had lost what was most beautiful to her: her children. Both of them had surpassed her expectations of beauty in different ways. Both were brilliant people, with beautiful hearts, beautiful looks, beautiful feelings, beautiful passions, beautiful dreams. So much beauty beyond to what she deserved. Like that pretty little box was too much for a mail order battery. It was even dysfunctional. A lithium battery requires certain safety measures for its transportation. At the end of the day, the pretty package would have to be put into a bubble wrap yellow envelope with safety labels stuck to it, hiding all that beauty to be transported. 

That’s where she failed. She was in such awe of all the beauty in her children that she didn’t cover them with layers of safety labels, bubble wrap, brown paper packages, cardboard boxes… She wanted to share them and their beauty with the world, without realizing that the majority of the people just throw away the pretty little transparent box the moment they get their hands on the battery. 

Some would  say that the battery is what counts. Maybe her children had their batteries hidden and protected in so many safety layers that the world thought there was nothing more they could extract from them and the beauty should be sacrificed for the sake of efficiency. To make room for more batteries.

She can’t see them anymore. She can’t hear their voices. She can’t touch their skin or detect their scent when they hug her. They can’t hug her anymore. 

She looks at the pretty little box and wanders for how long she will be allowed to keep it until the world thinks it’s not appropriate anymore: “Does the pretty little box makes you happy?”