The two worlds of the boxlings

He was small, so small that the entire box in which he was living seemed immense to him. His environment had two worlds with two shining flames on the distant horizon, each serving as a Sun, and two Moons that cut through the living light of the horizon’s flames. In these two worlds, the strange things were spontaneous and only a few among the boxlings* had the chance to observe them. However, one was an exception and could be easily observed, but it had happened so many times that it no longer surprised anyone.

At each time interval, of one chrono*, the two planets that were in the box alternated from the point of view of the duration in which light and shadow were present on the two planets. The cycles seemed to be undetermined and unlimited.

Some claimed that one planet has only light while the other planet has 6 hours of light followed by another 6 of shadow, from other sources it was understood that while the first planet has 18 hours of light followed by 6 of shadow, the second planet has two days of shadow preceded by 27 of darkness and so on.

Some cycles were short, others very long; altogether, a total mystery that had been put to the test by very many people whose IQ reached four digits, but in vain.

He, named Hor, was an adventurer. Or at least that’s what all the others believed about him, possibly because he liked to study how light and shadow alternate due to the two duplicate celestial bodies.

For the others, it was something normal, it was part of the daily routine and many of those who had tried, firmly claimed that this mystery of such magnitude cannot be elucidated, but for him nothing was impossible. Ever since he turned 5, Hor’s father, Seth, had taken him to the research center where the light-shadow cycles were studied. For 2 years, the father taught his son everything he knew, working 14 hours every day.

Hor managed to continue his father’s work after those two years, but they worked together because, despite Seth claiming he was too old, Hor needed his father’s experience.

Over the years, the father-son duo had come to discover what many others had failed to, but it wasn’t enough. They were so close that they felt the need to advance 10 steps at once, and the speed with which they had already begun to discover new things was unprecedented. The mass media published an increasingly larger percentage of what they discovered, and the father-son team became popular on each of the two planets.

Having reached an advanced age, Seth is overcome by old age, but before he passed, his son, Hor, promises him that he will continue the work and that he will manage to unravel the mystery of the two planets.

Despite the promise made, due to the difficult period he was going through, Hor had entered a depression that seemed to have no end. After his father died, he gathered the things he considered important, crammed them into a suitcase, and left so far away that he reached the most desolate place possible, in one of the bottom corners of the box.

Nothing was alive there, the Sun never shone but only threw patches of light on the desolate ground surface. It was an immense shell into which Hor had ventured without realizing that, as time passed, the shell became harder and harder and his return more and more impossible.

One year passed… two passed… three passed. He turned 40, but the situation was unchanged, at least unchanged for the better. He had become impulsive and hateful, and happiness, for him, was like a ray of the Sun in the corner of the box. Each day meant the same thing: he woke up, looked out the window hoping that the Sun would reach his window, traveled four hours to the nearest store to buy food, spent another four hours back home, ate, looked out the window again with the same thought he had in the morning after which he fell asleep, and his occupation, since the new dwelling, was to count the days.

He had become a larva, and his interior had become more desolate than the piece of Earth on which he lived.

After several thousand days had passed, all characterized by the same specific routine, it seemed that Hor was going to have a somewhat different day. On day 3019, a day that announced itself like any other, he went to the window with the same thought and the same hope he had every day, but this time it seemed like a shade of green had folded onto the landscape that stole his eyes.

Believing it was just a kind of mirage, he moved away from the window and left to buy food, but, as soon as he stepped outside, he noticed on the desolate piece of ground some weeds that had grown overnight. They were immense, ugly, and so strange that if something like this grew in a normal place, it was immediately eliminated. But for him, they were full of life; for him, they were like a fresh breath of air.

As soon as he noticed them, he remained frozen and stood like that for several good hours in a row. He was no longer hungry, he no longer felt the need to do anything, he just stood there and stared at those weeds, while his mind was invaded by all kinds of thoughts. In those few hours, he had thought about how he had reached this state, without a purpose in life, without daily activity, without happiness. He remembered the promise he had made to his father and intended to take action.

In the next second, exhilarated with happiness and enthusiasm, he kissed the weeds, went into the house, gathered all the things he considered important, crammed them into a suitcase, and left without looking back.

Having returned to the research center where the light-shadow cycles were studied, he surprises everyone with his presence, but that wasn’t to be all. After telling them what he had been through, Hor tells those at the center that he is going to do something that no one, until then, had had the courage to do.

He wanted to leave for one of the two Moons, the Moon that belonged to planet Samos. The two Moons were identical, or at least so it was rumored, but no one had reached one of them due to fear of the unknown. It was assumed that it was so dark that after the first step taken, there was no way back. But Hor wasn’t going to let some assumptions scare him, so two weeks after his return to the research center, he had everything ready for takeoff. He took with him two of the best physicists and astronauts and embarked on the space shuttle that was to take them to the Moon.

The closer they got, the denser the shadow that formed the darkness became until nothing could be seen ahead. They were assaulted by darkness, and all assumptions seemed to become real, everything seemed to be according to what was heard on Samos. They were sinking deeper and deeper into the immense desolation of darkness; it seemed like an Abyss. They had begun to reduce speed out of fear of not hitting some unidentified object that could appear out of nowhere in their path.

And they kept advancing for many days, at minimum speed, through the darkness that seemed never to end. They were assaulted by a feeling of despair, and their hope was slowly dissipating; all they were doing was advancing with their eyes closed on a mined terrain. Those who accompanied Hor considered that they should return because advancing through endless darkness wasn’t going to take them anywhere, but Hor felt that he was on the right path and that the end was near.

Despite the divergences that Hor had with his team, he was going to be right. 13 days after they had ventured into the cloud of darkness, the entire team was going to be blinded by a pulverizing light. Actually it was a simple light, just as powerful as the one on Samos, but after 13 days in which they had had no part of anything shining, they seemed to be blinded.

Having reached the moon that belonged to planet Samos, the team was going to be amazed. They discovered there a new extremely welcoming species, in which everything moved with absorbing rapidity, everything was controlled, everything was perfect. Every thing was in its place and was part of a whole. They stayed there for many years and learned how to be better, they perfected themselves, they took the example of this species that seemed to be more evolved, and before leaving, they also found out the mystery that, throughout thousands of generations, had given the boxlings headaches.

Returned to Samos, totally changed, they intended to put into practice everything they had learned in the years spent on the Moon, but also to pass it on. It was a new era that was going to take over; it was an evolution.

Asked what the mystery related to the light-shadow cycle is, Hor answered that these cycles are controlled by a species much more evolved than the boxlings, who watch over them, to protect them, those cycles being nothing more than the integration of the idea of mystery, unknown and fear into the mind of the boxlings.

Because otherwise, a mind lacking fear, mystery, and unknown would be one lacking the true emotions that give meaning to life.

*boxlings – those who lived in the box
*one chrono – unit of measurement for random time periods

I wrote this short story back in 2013, in Romanian, and translated it into English in 2025 with Claude.ai. I hope you enjoyed it.

With love and optimism,
David