Mysterious Gift-Wrapped Box

The skies had darkened almost. Miguel grabbed the shutter and locked the shop. It hadn't been a meaningful day in the shop. Mostly so for today. At Least he would get some customers to visit his shop on some of the days, but today had been not good. Mainly considering the fact, that game had occupied the minds of many of them. No one came after the father and son pair, so he had decided to close the shop early today.

'There is stuff that mom has told me to purchase' Miguel thought of the task his mom had given him at the start of the day. Someone was coming home to visit them.

As Miguel took one step forward, he fell to the ground.

He first checked for any traces of bruises or scratches. Finding none of them, he finally turned around to look at the perpetrator. At first, he thought it must have been a stone. But there was something else. A box, a small box around the size of two fists was on the ground.

The box was covered with a red gift wrapper. Grabbing the box, he turned it around to see any sign of designation for this box, finding none on it.

He padded himself as he stood up. It might have been the customers from before, or someone else. He looked around to see the crowd. There were many cars and other vehicles on the road. But none of the people were walking on the sidewalk. It might have fallen from some person. The person might come back looking for it. He decided to wait.

Seconds turned into minutes. After 10 minutes Miguel started losing patience. He paced around the perimeter of the shop, there was a juice shop next to it, but it was closed right now. Maybe they too had gone to purchase the game.

Such hype was not heard off, the game had grown straight to popularity. And the culprit was the new technology that left the individuals wanting more of it. He heard the technology used neurotic signals to make the user feel like they were inside the game. This project had almost been running for a decade and had required some of the biggest giants of the world to come up and make this game a possibility.

No one came even after the wait. 'It isn't my responsibility if you aren't coming back to take it.' Miguel convinced himself as he kept the box inside one of the pockets of his backpack. Heading toward the market.

The path to the market wasn't a hard one, it wasn't a problem for Miguel to skip one of the usual routes to get there. But such a small thing was still something that triggered uneasiness inside of him. He got to the market almost lazily.

The atmosphere inside the market was very enthusiastic unlike what Miguel was feeling right now. All vendors were lined around taking some of the space of the market area to sell some of their stuff. As they saw Miguel passing through their shop they almost invited him to purchase the vegetables from their shop only.

"Fresh vegetables, straight from the market."

"Vegetables for half the price, half the price."

"..."

Ignoring all of them he headed to the usual shop, his mom would go buy the groceries. As he purchased the meat and the vegetables, he decided not to haggle with the shopkeeper for prices.

Miguel looked at what was a heavy pile of groceries in his hand, his mom had said it was only a few things, he had been fooled by his mom.

Walking around in a trance he finally returned home. He got inside the gate and called out to his mom.

"Mom, I am home."

His mother didn't reply, she must have been busy with something.

Miguel opened his shoes and had gone into the hall. He found out that his mother was engrossed in a television romance show.

"You came back, did you bring back the stuff I had you about" Her concentration didn't falter at all. She was still watching the television when she said that. Looking at him from instant to instant.

"Here it is," Miguel decided not to disturb her as he kept the bag of groceries on the table and returned to his room.

Miguel didn't wait inside his room at all.

After keeping the bag, he was gone into the washrooms. He washed his face with some gel and soaked his face with a cloth. His reflection looked back at him its eyes dull.

"Are the guests coming tonight," Miguel asked his mom as he arranged his hair in the mirror. Making it more stylish than the one he had while at the shop.

"Haa, what did you say," his mother's voice came from the hall.

"Nothing, Mom." It looks like she still wasn't done with the tv.

"Okay," almost a high pitch, but Miguel didn't mind her and decided to take a shower.

It was the only thing about coming back from the shop that left him refreshed. Now, that he was done with it, he would spend the rest of the day either pondering over kinds of stuff or he would just sleeping the rest of the time. That was Miguel's schedule and certainly, his almost-dead lifestyle was a result of this schedule.

He had forgotten about the guest when he saw his mom going to the kitchen.

"Your aunt and uncle will come later at home, for now, she is with your father," Mom said as she decided to go into the kitchen.

There was a change of expression hearing his aunt and uncle's name as if he didn't want to even remember them at all. They had decided to come here. Miguel had a certainty that tonight wasn't going to be any good.

"Alright Mom," He returned to his room.

His room was stuffed with all kinds of items, it would be better to call it a storehouse than a room. It was filled with all kinds of stuff ranging from musical instruments to different books stacked on the shelf to the sport equipped that hadn't found their place yet. Then there was a bed and the table he had kept his bag on.

He decided to open the bag to check the box. It was something that was at the oddest place at the oddest of times. Whoever had been stupid enough to drop that box, might or might not come back. He took out the box. He looked ponderingly over it, rotating it, almost like he didn't have anything worthwhile to do at that moment.

Miguel was fully occupied appreciating the box, when someone snatched the box from his hand. For an instant Miguel just looked dumbly at his empty hands, there was just a box in those hands a few seconds ago.

The perpetrator was swiftly gone as she had come. Almost closing his door behind him.

"Sharla!" Miguel shouted for his sister. The actual culprit had run with the box and decided to run after her.

Her laughter came from the other room. Her room. Miguel chased till he stood straight at the door of his sister's room.

Even after pushing a few times the door didn't open. Miguel knew that she must have closed the door on the other side.

"What is this commotion," his mom came from the kitchen to look at Miguel standing face flat from Sharla's door.

"What is it this time," She almost asked with exasperation looking at her son's face.

"She has taken a box from me," Miguel said to his mom, still looking at his sister's door. He returned almost immediately with another sentence.

"Open the door," He tried to calm his expression as he said that.

"Not until I open this box," Sharla said from inside the room almost devilishly.

That happened for quite a while. His mom just stood at the side enjoying the show.

The duo were tangled in an intense back fourth conversation with Miguel repeatedly trying to open the door and Sharla taking fun of the situation from behind the doors.

On the other side, Sharla after teasing her brother for some time, couldn't contain the curiosity of what was inside the box.

She was faced with an intense conflict, to open or not open the box. The box looked a little too cute almost as if it was begging for her to open it.

She would ask her brother a question and depending on his answer she would think of how to handle the box.

"What is inside the box," She asked.

"I don't know, I found it near the shop, it isn't mine." Her brother's voice came almost desperate.

So it wasn't his box. Sharla thought to return a box. Then she heard a metallic clink from inside the box. Her desire was overwhelmed. She wanted to see what was inside the box.

A little bit won't hurt, right? It would only be a little peek.