The Box Man Read Online Free

draw near the beggars’ and vagrants’ area they make me experience a reaction close to morbid nervousness that is a far cry from indifference. I am looked at with more undisguised contempt and hostility than by anyone who pays his daily expenses and lives at a recorded address. I have, in fact, never heard of a beggar turning into a box man. Since I have no intention of being a beggar, he has none of being a box man. Even so I do not intend to look down on them. Surprisingly enough, even beggars are a part of the environs that belong to the townsfolk, and when you become a box man perhaps you’re below a beggar.
    Paralysis of the heart’s sense of direction is the box man’s chronic complaint. At such times the axis of the earth sways, and one suffers a severe nausea resembling seasickness. But for some reason there is absolutely no relationship with the consciousness of being a social dropout. Not once does he feel guilty about the box. I personally feel that a box, far from being a dead end, is an entrance to another world. I don’t know to where, but an entrance to somewhere, some other world. I say this, but the opening to that other world is not very different from a dead end alley if I stifle my nausea as I examine the world outside my little observation window. Let’s stop using the fancy words. I mean I don’t yet have any desire to die.
    Yet it’s too late. Indeed I wonder if she intends to renege on her promise. I still have seven matches. Wet tobacco is absolutely tasteless.
    Promises … promises…
    To take away the bitter taste, a drop of whiskey. A little less than a third left in my pocket flask.
    But it’s all right if she doesn’t come. Is breaking a promise anything to get excited about? I’ll be a lot more amazed if she puts in an appearance as she said she would. What if she doesn’t go back on her promise but sends a substitute in her place? And I’m positive this will happen. A substitute will come in her place. I have a general idea as to who that will be, too. In the final analysis they are both in it together. With her as decoy, the substitute intends to lure me under the bridge as a place of execution. Since I am a born victim-indeed, as I am a box man, which is the same as not existing, no matter how they try they’ll never kill me-the role of killer automatically goes to my enemy. That doesn’t mean that everything proceeds according to logic. I’m prepared to meet the attack. The wet surface of the slope is steep and slippery. Of course, when it comes to strength, I fancy he has something of an edge on me. I wonder if, contrary to my feelings, deep down I don’t want to die.
    Now, then, time and place are suitable to the victim. The speed of the tide is ideal too. A very oldfashioned thickbodied bridge that spans like a last constricting ring the funnelshaped mouth of the canal swollen at high tide with sea water. As the central portion rises in an arc to let ships pass, the girders from the area at the foot of the bridge arc conspicuously high. Since I am a box man walking around with a waterproofed room on my back like a snail, there is no need to worry about mere rain blown sideways or the height of girders. Compared to a real room the weak point of a box is that it has no floor, I suppose. If the wet wind comes blowing up from underneath, it is hard to avoid, whatever I do. But you can think of it in another light: precisely because there is no flooring, I can sit close by the water’s edge without fear of being flooded. Even if the water level suddenly rises, swollen at high tide by the rain, as long as it doesn’t exceed the height of my boots I can always stand up and change positions. For those who have not actually had the experience, this will seem madly carefree. Besides from now on the tide will be going out. No need to worry lest the water rise more than it has. The black band of seaweed, as if drawn with a ruler along the base of the embankment now rotting from