The Donation Box
My mother told me that when I was born I didn’t cry. In fact, I never ever cried. Or screamed, or laughed, or blushed, or gasped. I’d say I felt empty, but truthfully I didn’t feel anything at all.
One day I saw someone crying on the street. I’d take their pain if I could , I thought, just to know what it’s like . And suddenly, I did. My chest crushed, a lump so big I could hardly breathe formed in my throat, tears rolled down my cheeks. I fell to the ground in a heap as my body was torn apart.
Anguish was what I’d felt, I learned later on. I wanted to know what other feelings there were, so I placed a box outside my house that simply read “Donate Emotions Here”. I would feel any emotion someone wanted to give to me, so long as I was willing to feel it.
The first emotion was donated soon after. Everything turned red and I lit on fire. I screamed. I threw my lamp across the room and it shattered on the floor. I was left panting and shaking as the emotion subsided. That was my first introduction to anger.
When the next emotion was donated I broke into a cold sweat. My stomach dropped. My mind was focused and clouded at the same time. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. I backed against the wall, hyperventilating, and waited for it to pass. And so I knew fear.
Another donation was dropped into the box but this time nothing hit me immediately. I felt it slowly, it was similar to fear, but less intense. I was small and my stomach was in knots. Poison slowly leaked out of my heart to infect every inch of my body and consume me. I’d met jealousy.
Every day I put the box out and every day I felt other people’s feelings for them. All the one’s they didn’t want. I learned the subtle differences between rage and indignation, despair and woe, neglect and rejection. Some were immediately recognizable: fury exploded within me, grief ripped me in two. Others snuck up on me but were familiar all the same: the hollow echo of loneliness, the constant tug of regret.
I grew more and more tired every day. The pain in the world seemed unending. Feeling something is better than feeling nothing , I told myself. I was helping people with their burdens, but in doing so made those burdens my own.
One morning a donation was made and the feeling was nothing I knew. A fire lit inside me but it wasn’t the inferno of rage or the burning coals of scorn. It was a campfire by a lake, a candle on a dark night. The little fire warmed me from the inside. Bubbles filled my body until I was floating and light radiated from my skin. For the first time, someone had given me happiness. All I could do was smile.