Stanislaw Had a Box for Everything

The first one had been the hardest. He’d been young then, of course, but the memories of trying to hold that lid on were still every bit as real as the smell of freshly cut cardboard in the operating theatre. Sometimes at night, amid the muffled hubbub from the rowdier prisoners in the upper boxes, it seemed to Stanislaw that he could make out the higher pitch of that first victim’s squeal.

At the moment, however, the office was unnaturally hushed. And that was not all. No sooner had he emerged from the theatre than Stanislaw saw that his desk was not as it should be: the boxing schedules and progress reports were no longer in their neat rectangular pile, but scattered haphazardly here and there, while three of the “souvenir” pigeon holes were darkly empty.

Stanislaw laid down his surgical towel and plunged into deep reflection. Of a sudden, his ears pricked up. The sound was unmistakable. One of the boxes was open.

This mini-story was inspired by "Stanislaw Had a Box for Everything", an ipad finger painting by Matthew Watkins. Matthew's Fingerpaintings will be on display from June 18th - 26th at the Sala Murat, Bari, Italy. Website: www.watkinsmedia.com