Once upon a time there was a little girl. Her name was Claralisia. Claralisia always loved being alone. She felt that when she was with others they expected something she didn’t have in her to give, like an amazing personality or an interesting conversation. Claralisia was not a very interesting girl. She was not interesting at all. She was very boring. In fact the activity that made up most of her day was sitting. She would find a nice quiet place free of people, plop down and just sit there. Every day was the same. Claralisia would just sit and sit.

One day, she was off in a field looking for somewhere new to sit. She walked for a while, feeling most uncomfortable with all the dry grass rubbing against her legs, making them itch a great deal. She had very little time to think about the grass because of all the bugs she was trying to prevent from nipping her. Eager to find a place to sit, she admitted defeat to the bugs and stopped for a break. She bent down to pick a pretty little flower that was a gorgeous tangerine shade. It was a pansy. Claralisia didn’t think much of the flower, but she had just now realized that this particular shade of tangerine agitated her. So in order to solve this problem she ripped all the frail tangerine shaded petals from the stem. When she had finished ferociously murdering the tangerine shaded pansy, Claralisia continued on her search for a perfect seat.

After a seemingly never-ending half hour of torturous searching, she found a nice wooden box. The box was a truly attractive one indeed, painted a fantastic mash of browns with small carvings that looked like tiny people standing in a row. Not that Claralisia cared in the least about its visual appeal, but she did find that it was a most comfortable box, one she thought she might enjoy sitting on again. In the late afternoon, when Claralisia was done sitting for the day, she decided to take the box home with her.

When she got home, Claralisia ran to her room and shut the door. She was sure not to slam it too hard or too soft. That way it didn’t seem like she was about to do something interesting in the least - it just made a sort of casually natural slamming sound. Finally when she got into her room, she put the box on her bed and sat in a chair across from it. Claralisia watched the box so intently that it was a wonder her eyes didn’t bore holes in it. The box had a huge rusty lock preventing her from opening it. She also made out eight little people engraved on the top of the box, standing side by side. Each one looked different in some way, but the most distinctive difference was the way the people on the far left were faded out a bit, like they had been carved some time ago. As the line of people progressed to the right, the people gradually got clearer, like they had just been installed yesterday. Claralisia started to get curious about what the box might hold. As she was thinking about what could be inside such a peculiar box, she decided she didn’t have enough imagination to pull off a half-decent idea. So instead of imagining, she took matters in to her own hands.

Claralisia didn’t come up with some mind-blowing plan. Instead she did the obvious thing, smashing the lock with something heavy. After a few labored smashes, the lock came loose. Now was the moment of truth. A mild rush of excitement ran through Claralisia’s body. She lifted the lid to encounter the most disturbing scent that could possibly enter a human’s nostrils, the scent of another human rotting. Claralisia scrunched up her face in a most unattractive fashion, then made a few cough-like gasps and a couple of gasp-like coughs before she made the smart decision to take the box outside.

Once outside she emptied the box on the grass to find eight hollow skins. The skins toward the bottom of the box were very flimsy and decayed, which Claralisia didn’t much care for. But the one on the very top was brand-new and just her size. It was the skin of a little girl just like her. Except this little girl was the most beautiful girl Claralisia had ever seen. She picked up the girl’s skin and held it. She ran a finger down the girl’s smooth empty face. Claralisia envied this girl so much that Claralisia was ready to cut the girl into card-sized squares and use her fair skin as stationery. But something stopped Claralisia. An idea stopped her. As she looked into the girl’s empty eye sockets, she had the single most creative, interesting, ingenious idea she had ever had. So there and then she took off her dress and slipped into the new skin. The girl’s skin felt strangely amazing on her own, it was a perfect fit and Claralisia truly felt God had meant for her to be in this new skin. As she pulled her dress over the new skin she felt it was time to sit down again, so she put the seven other skins back in the box, closed the lid and sat down.

For the next day or so she felt better than ever. Claralisia did everything in the new skin, but after a while, the skin started to rot. So she took it off feeling terribly about parting with her true self and placed the skin back in the box.

She felt immoral keeping the box. It was time to return it to its owner. So she put up a sign in the local Wal-Mart saying to come to her house to retrieve it.

One day there came a knock on her door and a voice yelled, “I’m here for the box!” Claralisia grabbed the box and swung the door open to see a man with a gun and then to see nothing but black.

Now she sits in the box.