Analogy

We were sitting at a long craft table in a kind of warehouse, which was lined with shelves full of objects one could paint or decorate. We were visiting with family while the children played on equipment in an adjoining room and there was a woman we didn't know sitting near us. I think she said her name was Susan. As we talked, a woman approached Susan, holding in both hands a battered shoe box bound with masking tape.  

She held it out, saying, "Do you think these are too fragile to--" The box slipped from her hands and hit the floor with the crash of things smashing to smithereens.

Stunned, none of us moved--until the woman who had dropped the box and a man somewhere behind her began laughing uproariously. Susan joined them.

It was all a practical joke. We were filled in on the back story. Susan is a glass-blower and makes things with molten glass. She needed to take a lot of her stuff home and the couple, known pranksters, had offered to help her pack it up. After one missed heartbeat, Susan knew the box held nothing of significance, nothing but junk.

The battered box bothered me more than it did Susan. I keep remembering it and identifying with it. I am like that ugly box all taped together, all the parts of me inside now, no longer separate. When we fall we fall as one unit. Although we sound as if we are smashing to smithereens, we are actually already smashed. There is nothing of significance inside, nothing but junk.