MUSIC BOX Shane Jones

One morning a short man with a white cane stood in the middle of town. He constructed a tall
wooden box and when he was done he hit the door to the wooden box with his white cane.

*

"What's that?" I asked you.
"I don't know."
"Let's find out."
"Okay."

*

The short man with the white cane charged us each a coin. You went into the box first. I heard
trumpets, then violin, and piano. You came out laughing. The man with the white cane laughed
and twirled his white cane.

*

"What is it?" I asked you.
"…"
"Are you okay?"
"…"
You kept laughing and smiling.

*

I grabbed the white cane from the short man and threatened him with a savage beating. I asked
what he had done. He just kept laughing. He said it was only a music box.

*

Back home I put you to sleep and you laugh through the night. I stay awake, staring up and
seeing white canes dripping from the ceiling. You choke on a white cane and I pull it from your
laughing mouth.

*

You keep laughing.

*

The next day I walk back to where the short man with the white cane was. He's gone. I ask some
people walking past if they've seen a short man with a white cane standing next to a large
wooden box. Most are holding white canes. Everyone is laughing.

*

During dinner a trail of HAHAHAHA pours from your mouth. The H's form a ladder. The A's a
spike through the floor. I follow the ladder. I move away from your laughter.

*

Down here young girls are smoking large pipes. Pipes half the size of their bodies. Everyone is
lying on neon colored cots. Everyone is not laughing.

*

The door to the floor, to the ceiling, slams shut. I wonder if you're still laughing up there.

*

I'm instructed to lay on a neon green cot. A pipe is placed on my stomach. The sky here is neon
gray clouds.

*

"The entire town does nothing but laugh," I say.
"It's that man with the white cane," says the maid.
"My wife went into that box of his."
"Oh no."
"Is that bad?"
"So bad you might as well live down here now."

*

Sometimes when I'm asleep on my neon green cot smoking my pipe, I think I hear you laughing.

*

One day, the ladder of H's collapses and it's me that cleans them up in a dustpan.

*

I ask the young girls smoking pipes if I can go back upstairs now. They say, what's the point. I
say that I think the laughing has stopped. I imagine breaking their pipes across my knee. I
imagine painting their cots white.

*

"Okay, we will help you."
"I didn't think you would."
"We are out of opium."
"Oh no."
"Please throw some down once you get up there."

*

The young girls smoking pipes open a closet and pull out a long ladder. The long ladder is neon
red. They raise it to the ceiling.

*

I climb through neon gray clouds that are smoke. I feel lightheaded. I open the door in the ceiling
and pull myself through.

*

"Hello?"

*

"…"

*

You're sitting on the edge of the bed, silent, looking at your cupped palms. Inside your cupped
hands, a little white cane and a wooden box playing music.