Boxed

The woman opened the door and immediately spotted the box in the middle of the floor. It was an old, rustic box with the top cemented on and it had been inside the bedroom for 16 years.  She tiptoed inside, with her long, thick braid being dragged on the floor. She stared at the box for several minutes, not wanting to get close to it just yet. She walked across the room and stared out the window which overlooked a pond and several acres of land. Through the window, she could see both the moon and the sun in the sky and within an hour, the moon would dominate the night sky. Tonight would be her last night as Hilda Henderson.

She sat on the floor and attempted to open the locked box without any tools . The key had been misplaced long ago, but given the box’s fragile condition, she believed she could break it open with her bare hands. She tried wiggling the top off. When that didn’t work, she stood up and jumped on it. After a few jumps she cracked the box open. She looked inside and saw what she had placed there 16 years prior, on the night of her wedding. A pair of gold scissors.

Without thinking twice, she grabbed the scissors, grabbed her braid and cut her hair right above her shoulders. It took almost a minute to cut through all the hair she had grown over the course of 16 years. When she was done, she looked at the braid with a blank stare and was surprised to feel nothing.

Hilda’s life as Mrs. Henderson was officially over. She looked out the window and saw the night sky rolling in. She looked at her wedding ring and thought of all the memories she’d missed out on by living in that isolated house with her husband–all the things he never allowed her to do, and all the ways in which she could finally get her revenge. I’m going to let these nails grow, she thought to herself. Indefinitely.

She would tend to her nails and be like the lady on Guinness World Records who grew her nails until they curled up and hardened into the shape of a garden snail. She would care for them; wash them every day, put a fresh coat of wax to strengthen them, manicure them, polish them, and massage them. I should even let my toe nails grow, she thought and gave herself a small chuckle. If she could endure 16 years of walking on eggshells around Mr. Henderson, she could find a way to let her nails grow the way she wanted.

“This is a disgusting idea,” she heard Mr. Henderson’s voice saying from beyond the dead. “I forbid you.”

Mr. Henderson forbid everything. And even in death, Mr. Henderson was attempting to sabotage any plans that did not involve him. She laughed his comments off and walked into the next room where he resided in his eternal sleep. His body had stiffened over the course of 2 hours. Hilda’s first task was to take out his eyes and put them in the box, that way he would not be able to watch her anymore. Her next task would be to dispose of the box containing Mr. Henderson’s eyes and her braid, that way she would not be reminded of her 16 years as Hilda Henderson. Lastly, she would need to find a way to speed up her nails growing so that if investigators ever found her she would have a story to tell them, How could I kill my husband? Look at my nails. Does it look like I can commit a crime in these?