Box

Is falling in love a literary device, or does it actually happen? Love must somehow be affected by gravity. In order to fall in love, one must be above love. This seems to imply that love is morally below people who are not in love. We stoop down to love’s level in order to experience it. Does that mean that the inverse is true? If we’ve fallen out of love, are we below it? Is it better than us?

Humans have always attributed sadness to “feeling low” and happiness to having “high spirits”. Self esteem is measured as either “High” or “Low”. There’s a scale that seems to follow a vertical path. Does love follow this path? It seems to with its notions of gravity. If it does, love would have to reside at the zero point on the scale.

If we take this vertical scale of love and compare it against the happiness or self esteem scale, those who have never been in love should be happier, those who are in love should have no feelings, and those who have fallen out of love should be sadder. Given this logic, love has no value.

I imagine a faceless, sexless human named “Us” suspended in the air. There is no Earth below Us. All around Us is a white cloud with invisible features. Just a smooth white cloud. A black hooded robe is worn by Us. The arms and legs that belong to Us are fluidly moving about in space. The happiness of Us is at its highest possible. Below Us is a heart shaped box with an open top. The curiosity is driving Us mad. The box seems to be getting closer to Us. The sensation of falling is noticed by Us. The happiness starts to fall as well and is replaced by fear. The head that belongs to Us is smashed against the bottom of the heart shaped box. Stillness is felt. No movement of the extremities. There is nothing. No happiness is felt by Us. After a great while of stillness, the box’s floor begins to melt away and stretch under the warmth and weight of Us. The bottom of the box rips through and throws Us down below it. The box keeps the black robe that belongs to Us and leaves Us naked. A new feeling of sadness begins to overtake and grow within Us as the box gets farther away and out of view. There is no happiness, only waiting and sadness. There will be a great battle for Us to get back up into the air and into happiness. A path that must avoid the heart shaped box at all costs to get back up. For if the box is passed back through by Us, nothing will be gained. There will be nothing. The journey must pass the heart shaped box and continue on to the happiness above it. Only then will the life of Us start again.

I’d rather Us feel something. I’d rather for Us to be happy.