Return to Sender, by Thomas McEvoy

What is Home? by Asbestos (Ireland) contemporary. Photo by Jay Galvin. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

Return to Sender

 
Monday morning, I wake up with a cardboard box for a head. 

There are tiny slits cut out for my eyes. 

Inside, it’s not black but a deep blue. 

I push against the walls of the box with my fingers, feeling the rough cardboard, but there’s no escape.

I fumble for the toolkit I never use but suppose every great man should own.

I try to shake the box off. 

I’m left with nothing but the urge to revisit my latest online buys. 

It’s something I do late at night when the Sunday scaries kick in: buy mystery boxes from the dark web. 

There are no clues in my recent buys as to where this box has come from.

I think and think, until finally, I step out onto South Main Street. 

My head feels light, like dissolving smoke. 

A chill passes through my skin, the cardboard scraping my neck as it shifts with every step. 

The box smells faintly of ink and stale air. 

Something tells me this is just the start. 

Soon, other parts of me will turn to cardboard.

I am becoming so fragile that a gust of wind could send my whole being down the street, taken in by alley dumpsters and the local garbage men, left to decompose in a landfill until, twenty years later, I turn into methane gas and become one with the earth.  

No. I’ll go out with a bang. 

Yeah, that’s how people will remember me. 

I’ll go to the local post office to get shipping labels and packing tape.

I’ll send sawed-off pieces of myself in boxes to people all over the country I’ve lost contact with: past lovers, childhood friends, distant family and cracked tombstones where dates crawl with ants.  

Macy, the girl I kissed on the cheek in first grade under the desk during playtime, will get my right arm. 

My best friend Charles from band camp: I’ll send him my left foot, the one I used to kick the drums. 

I could start small, a pinkie finger. 

Or go big, a whole torso. 

I feel great in a way. 

At least people all over the country will find pieces of me in heart and hand shaped boxes. 

But of course, it’s too early for any shops to be open. 

Ever since insomnia took over my life, I haven’t known how to fill those hours between midnight and before I’m due in for work. 

I turn to head back to my apartment. 

When I cross the road, a garbage truck almost runs me over. 

I can’t see well through my slits for eyes. 

My right arm has turned to cardboard. 

It feels lighter, like it will tear off at the slightest touch. 

I will have to call in sick, something I haven’t done in seven years. 

How do I explain what’s happening to me to my boss Barry? 

Barry, who sits opposite my desk, typing emails that mean nothing. 

Barry, who eats the same tuna melt every lunch. 

Boring Barry, but I’d never say that to his face. 

I make my way to the front door of the apartment complex. 

It’s not just Barry anymore. 

It’s everyone I know. 

What’ll Lucy say? 

Lucy, who I pass daily on the elevator but struggle to make eye contact with, my third-floor crush who smells like sandalwood. 

But she won’t know it’s me. 

She’ll think I’m a guy who’s decided to cover his face with a box, hiding horrible scars or a disfiguration. 

Her mind will be racing, wondering whether I’m like Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man, because under the box could be anything. 

I open the door to my room and sit on my hands. 

Soon, I’ll be nothing but boxes. 

Box shins. Box elbows. Box toes. 

The box thoughts are an incessant hunger, ringing like church bells announcing the end of time. 

And as I reach my phone to text Barry, it hits me:

if waking up with my head replaced by a box is normal, and sending sawed-off pieces of myself in boxes is possible…
​
then what else could happen?

Thomas McEvoy

Thomas McEvoy is a Paraguayan-born British writer who has lived in several countries, including Panama, Honduras, Ecuador, Japan, Canada, Spain, and England. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Liverpool. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in J Journal: New Writing for Justice, Scoundrel Time, Collateral Journal, and Libre. His flash fiction story River Without Current won the Shooter Flash monthly competition for March 2025. You can find his writing at www.thomasmcevoy.uk.