Ficlets

The pain her right knee returned and brought her back to the present. She had been awake for 32 hours and thinking about the children and the lights made her brain hurt.

What Jean really wanted to do was stop and look at the box again. What was it in there? But right now she also needed to sleep and so she succumbed to that overwhelming physical need and pulled off the highway into a small wooded space where the car would not be visible from the road.

Drifting easily away from consciousness, Jean began dreaming. First it was the two giggling children that had passed in front of the car, was the blond one her somehow. Am I a child?

Then, in her dream, she saw the officer. He had been so puzzled by her and now she understood that he had seen himself in her.

It was the box. She knew it had to be the box.

Awakening, she reached for it and paused, wondering if she should look again. Why hadn’t she been able to tell earlier what it was? Was it a mirror? Or was it a lens? Was it her inside?