We’re Sorry

by Luc Reid

Unfortunately, this story is unavailable. If it were available, my best guess is that it would go something like this:

There would be a main character of some kind, trapped in a box about the size of a dishwasher. There would also be an explanation of how this had happened, and maybe some hope that he would get out–but he wouldn’t get out, at least not in the story.

There would be some sort of conversation with a person sitting on the box. The odd thing is that I think the main character would be a close friend of the person sitting on the box, but the person sitting on the box wouldn’t let him out. I don’t know why. I don’t think, in the story, that he would want to be in the box, but I might be wrong.

From there, I’m not sure. It’s possible that he’s a magician who is supposed to do an escape, but who fails. Or possibly he’s being shipped somewhere. Or he might be some kind of yogi, meditating. Actually, I just don’t know: really I’m grasping at straws now.

There would be all kinds of lush description, and while there would only be seven lines of dialog, those seven lines would be exquisitely funny. There would be some kind of pun involving a llama, but it would be a good one, not one of the old, tired ones.

And the thing that would be most striking is that by the end of the story, we wouldn’t mind that he was in the box, and neither would he. He would be happy. His friend would go away, but that would be all right. And though there would be no one there, the last thing he would say in the story would be

“Shhhhh.”