Secrets

An icy cold front had crept in overnight, evident by the frosty layer of white blanketed over his once luscious grass. He stepped outside and felt the blunt temperature drop. A tightening of his skin occurred and it sent a wave of nostalgia over him, filling him with pride and guilt. The stench of the freeze was earthy, a stale odor that seemed to hang before him like fumes from a factory. But the most unsettling thing about the bitter air was that it seemed to halt the surrounding city. He heard no sounds, just white noise. The sun was up though, at least the world wasn’t coming to an end. Yet.

Fiona, his wife, had sent him an odd text in the middle of the night. It simply stated “I’m leaving”. What did that really mean? Was she going somewhere? Or leaving him altogether? He woke up to that text and the emotions he felt could be comparable to an earthquake. It stops you in your tracks but takes time for your brain to register what is really going on. Fiona had left him and had not given him any indication as to why.

Seven years they had been together. Seven uneventful, boring years. But things were good. When he got back from his business trip last week, they had gone out. They ate salmon and mussels at Bella Italia and went to see some dry romance movie that had just come out. Then the following days had been more of the same as they’d been the last nine years they’d been together. Things were good—more like ok, but still good.

As he sat in the cold, a thought nipped at him. Maybe she had found out?

No. That wasn’t possible.

But maybe it was.

He stood abruptly and paced back inside, thundering through the two-story like a man on a mission. Reaching the inconspicuous door to the basement, he paused and pondered. A tight grip squeezed the knob, if the thing wasn’t solid, it would have been shattered or deformed as his vice was so tight on the thing.

She couldn’t have found out. He was always so careful. Extremely careful. The consequences were dire, life-changing, and world-altering. His dirty little secrets. The ones he kept hidden away in a little box in the corner of his basement. Another twinge of guilt festered in him as the skin around his arms did that tightening thing again. But what did he have to feel guilty about? He shook off the feeling and turned the knob.

The door made this squealing sound when he opened it, it always did. The noise sent him back to the farm when he was just a boy. His parents ran a pig farm all his life, they still did to this day, even in their ancient age. The pigs, upon slaughter, would make this awful squealing sound that was almost identical to the one his basement door made. It seemed like a sick joke from the universe, but he knew better. It was all in his head. The whole thing. The squealing door and his wife finding out about the box—his secrets.

Stopping on the first descending step, he stared down into the basement. The blackness was like a void, like a portal into the unknown. It was a darkness that he could only associate with the bottom of the ocean. Just…nothing. He could stare down at it for hours and his eyes would never adjust. This was no regular darkness. This one harbored his awful secrets, it could leave no room for error.

There he went again, calling them awful, feeling guilt. His secrets were vile, yes. But what they really were…was a necessity.

What he was doing had to be done. There was really no other way around that. He was doing what no one else could do. Whether that be because they couldn’t stomach it, or simply didn’t know about it. The reason didn’t matter.

The pride circled back like a grizzly sniffing out a wounded moose. It overtook him. The secrets should be displayed to the public. He should be given awards, medals of honor. They should dedicate a holiday to his doings. He should go down in history.

But the reality just wasn’t that. As unfortunate as that was.

His wife had found his box of secrets and had left him. She saw what he had done and didn’t know what to do, so she simply left. The text was probably a gut reaction so he wouldn’t be suspicious. That had obviously backfired. She had probably gone to her father, who was a lieutenant with the police department until retirement. He was probably making calls as he stood and glared into the black hole that was his basement. The whole department, FBI, and Army were probably on their way to apprehend him.

The wooden step made a thunk as he stepped down.

Thunk thunk thunk. He made his way into the unknown black. Each thunk, a memory. With every step, a smile came and went. A halfhearted grin. Then he hit the cement floor of the basement. He reached before him and pulled the string that brought a dim illumination to the room.

The box sat immediately before him, just a few feet away sat flush against the chilly wall. It was a small, wooden box. Simple in nature, there wasn’t much to it. It had no fancy design, no complex locking system. A straightforward latch was all that stood in the way of his secrets and his life coming to an end. How could he be so stupid?

No. He wasn’t stupid. It had been years and no one ever had any indication at all. There were never any connections made—to his knowledge at least. The little box was full of big things. It didn’t look like much, but it had greatness inside of it. In many ways, the box was him.

Thunk.

He turned and Fiona was at the top of the steps. A flushed look on her face that reminded him of his face in the mirror after he had slaughtered his first pig. That squeal had haunted and fueled him.

“Hey,” she said.

He was frozen.

“Sorry. That text was really vague but I panicked. Dad was taken to the hospital. Heart attack. He’s ok, but I didn’t want to wake you. I know you’ve had a busy week.”

“Oh,” he said. It was all he could muster.

Fiona cocked her head, trying to see around him.

“What are you doing down here?” She asked so in a peculiar way, as if she was suspicious of the box, suspicious of him. “Are you ok, babe?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said. He paused, thought. “So your dad is alright?”

“He is. Like I said, he did have a heart attack. But he’ll be fine. A lifestyle change may be in the future though.” Fiona chuckled to herself. A pitiful try at humoring herself in a tough situation.

“Why don’t you come on and get dressed. We’ll go to the hospital and sit with him, let my mom get some rest,” she continued. “I know how you love hospital food.”

She turned and walked to the doorway. “It’s cold out there,” she said and made a shivering gesture, hugging herself tightly.

He was now alone, standing just a few feet from his box of secrets. He would have to move the box soon. That was too close of a call, but for now, it would have to stay.

But he took one good look at the box. His mouth stretched into a ghastly rictus.

Thunk thunk thunk thunk. He trotted up the steps, leaving his secrets in a void of darkness once again.