Rosa had a discount code that she’d sent her sister via WhatsApp. If Connie used it, Rosa said, she would get a 50% discount on her next purchase, and Connie’s first box would be free, and what did Connie have to lose?  

     Look, Rosa sighed, I’ll just download it for you, OK? No, no, listen: when you get your free one, I get my discount, right? Then you can unsubscribe and you can leave the Box to gather dust in a corner, see …

     She said it like that - the Box - trumpeting the ‘B’ with unmistakable capitalisation. She’d been fidgeting with Connie’s phone already, no point in arguing anymore. It was unfortunate that she knew the passcode. Connie would  have to change it when Rosa left for the airport, as well as unsubscribe from this ridiculous service.

     But, finally alone in the house, she discovered she couldn’t do it. She couldn't look at her phone long enough. Ben was still hugging her tight on the lock screen, Connie’s head nestled beneath his chin, his long arms tight around her body. She couldn’t delete the app. She couldn’t stop the Box from coming.

                                                                              #

On that first Sunday morning, the sound of the doorbell jerked her awake.

     Hello?

     Your box had arrived.

     My …? Wait, sorry,  I’ll buzz you in. Sorry!

     She opened the door to find no one there: only the Box. Now she’d finally made the connection with Rosa’s visit, she capitalised the word in her mind automatically, though its appearance hardly warranted the honour. It was a medium-sized, cardboard box, the dull grey colour of dirty water from scrubbing the floor. On the front, a white square of paper with her name and address:

                                                             Concetta Zaro Wyke,

                                                      St Botolph’s Road, Richmond

                                                                     TW10 7RB

     She had been in the second year of her PhD when she’d started judging her colleagues based on how they spelled, or more often misspelled, her name. (Ben had cut right through that by calling her Connie, the first person to do so, from the first email he sent her, like they were already the best of friends.) Whoever had sent the Box deserved full marks: they’d got both the ts in ‘Concetta’ and they hadn’t written ‘Zero’ instead of ‘Zaro’. She couldn’t help but being impressed. This may be why, when her phone screen lit up an instant later with the message ’The Fun Factory would like to send you notifications’, she pressed her thumb on ‘allow’.

     Dear Connie,

     Has anyone told you that you reap what you sow?

     Enjoy your Box!

     The Fun Team

     She brought the Box to the kitchen and she placed it on the counter. It wasn't very heavy, though she could hear a few objects rattling inside. Still cringing at the text, she reached for the scissors and cut through the thick brown Sellotape binding the Box. Inside, wrapped in various layers of plastic, an assortment of gardening tools. Weeding fork, trowel, a spade. Green rubber gloves. A bag of dirt and eight bulbs in a see-through plastic bag. There was also a single sheet of white paper: typed instructions to plant and cultivate red poppies.

     Connie had never been the outdoorsy type, even before she started spending all her time in bed. She didn’t like the prospect of kneeling on the dump ground, sweating to get something to grow. How middle-class, anyway, to assume everyone had a garden. Ben would have hated it, though he’d been the one who’d insisted on the garden. For the children. He’d made grand plans for a treehouse; he thought he’d have time.

     She did it in the evening, and found it not unpleasant. She hadn’t stepped into the garden since the accident. There was some comfort in discovering that she was able to do so. That she could kneel right here, where she had looked, transfixed, at the paramedics over Ben’s motionless chest. That she could, with some effort, dig a hole in the ground and fill it with unborn poppies and make them disappear beneath a thick layer of earth, so easily; yet the damp black dirt clung to her gloved fingers, in a way that put her in mind of Lady Macbeth.

     Well well well, if it isn’t Mrs Wyke.

     Her crackle made Connie jump. She brought a hand to her heart, smearing her jumper with dirt as she turned on her knees to face her.

     Miss Dodds looked just like what she was. An elderly, educated, middle-class English woman. A science teacher at the local grammar school, Connie remembered, before retiring years ago. Hers was the only other house in the complex with access to the garden, which had been Connie’s strongest objection to buying their house. Ben thought a little old lady could hardly give them any trouble.

     Of course you’d think that, Connie had told him, the hag adores you, With your blond hair and your rosy cheeks. You look like Jack going to the market to sell his cow.

     Ben had laughed at that. Miss Dodds had practically cooed over him, at the viewing. To Connie, she had shown nothing but her pink gums in a perfunctory smile, and exaggerated surprise over the fact that she taught English literature. In the end, Connie let it go. Ben had loved this house. Most of the money for the down-payment had been his, anyway.

     It is actually Dr Zaro Wyke, Connie said to Miss Dodds, before relenting. But please, call me Connie.

     Of course, my dear. Well I am pleased to see you up and about, Connie, I am sure.

     Connie felt her mouth arrange itself into a smile.

     Life goes on, I suppose, persisted Miss Dodds. Except for your poor husband. What a tragedy.

     Connie felt her head nodding. Then she was telling Miss Dodds about Rosa, how it had been Rosa’s idea, to take her mind off things. She explained about the Box, about the Fun Factory. About the ridiculous notion that one needed other people to organise their ‘fun’ for them. Like they were too dim to do anything by themselves, beside looking at a screen — unless that screen gave them exact instructions on what to do with their lives. It was the most Gen-Z thing she had ever heard. No wonder Rosa enjoyed it so much.

     To each their own, Miss Dodds smiled suavely to end Connie’s soliloquy. Connie bit her tongue behind pursed lips.

  That evening, she was finishing her tea when the notification arrived.

  No harm in getting one’s hands dirty, is there?

  Connie grinned, before checking herself. She cleared her screen, and took two sleeping tablets. To bed to bed to bed.

                                                                               #

She was awake when the doorbell rang on Sunday morning, but she took her time to walk down the stairs. When she opened the door, the delivery person was gone

     The Box was heavier this week, due to the tins of pealed tomatoes and the half pound of minced beef. There was also a white onion, two carrots, a stalk of celery, and a bag of spaghetti. This time, the instruction sheet reported the recipe for Bolognese. As though she needed it: she had made it for Ben every other Sunday of their short marriage.

     Next to the Box, her phone lit up.

     Dear Connie,

     Food is only as good as the people you share it with.

     Get to know your neighbours today.

     The Fun Team

     Connie snorted. Who were these people, to assume she had no one to share her meals with? Unless Rosa had ticked the box for ‘sad lonely widow’ when she’d set up the app, as well as the one for ‘meat-eater’. Because it was true: she had no one left here, to share her meals with. She’d had friends, once. She remembered, with surprise, that she used to have many friends. She seemed to have shed them, like rotting leaves in autumn, as she grew closer to Ben. He had been her best friend, and Connie his. Ben had said they needed nobody else.

     But that is the point of the whole enterprise, cried Miss Dodds that evening after dinner. The reason your sister Rosie—

     Rosa.

     That she downloaded this application on your phone. It is to force you to socialise, isn’t it, my dear?

     I suppose.

     When Miss Dodds spoke again it was not, for once, to say anything nasty.

     Have you heard of Schrödinger’s cat?

     Connie shook her head, hiding her weariness. She knew Miss Dodds’ house was full of cats. She had seen them roaming the garden, heard them meowing late at night and early in the morning. She had no interest in hearing a cat story, but she could hardly say that.

     Schrödinger’s cat, Miss Dodds explained in her most schoolmarmish tone, is a thought experiment. A cat is put into a box with a mechanism which may or may not release poison. Until you open the box, you don’t know whether the cat is alive or dead. While box is closed, the cat is both alive and dead.

     Connie nodded automatically.

     It rather reminds me of your Box, dear, Miss Dodds continued condescendingly. Until you have opened it, until you perform the task these people - the Fun Team, you call them? - have set for you, anything can happen. An almost infinite number of outcomes is still possible, while the lids are shut, but you have to lift them to set one in motion. You never know what a closed box may hold. It is tantalising — it forces one to act.

     Connie nodded, again, far from sure she understood. A sudden vision of a dead, stiff, furry body against the cardboard bottom of the Box sent shivers down her spine.

     She started collecting the plates from the table. Enough socialising for one day.

     The Fun Team seemed to agree. When she checked her phone before taking her sleeping tablets, there was a new notification:

     That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?

     No, Connie thought, it hadn’t been so bad after all. She used to enjoy cooking for someone else. She missed it. She was beginning to see the appeal of delegating one’s life choices to an algorithm.

                                                                                   #

That was what she did. Over the following Sundays, she was up and dressed long before the doorbell rang, to catch the Box the moment it landed on her doorstep. She never managed to see the delivery person, but she had the impression, at the time, that that was for the best. The reality of them, their tangibility, may have dispelled the awe she now felt for the Box.

     In a few cases, she couldn’t have ignored the Box if she had wanted to. On Easter Sunday, she brought the Box to the kitchen amidst a concert of screeching and meowing. The moment she opened it, a black ball of fur jumped out of it and onto her chest, tiny crawls pricking at the skin beneath her shirt. The kitten came with food, a litter, a toy-mouse and the usual letter of instructions, this time explaining how to keep it alive. She had piercing yellow eyes and a name - Nemesis - which made the back of Connie’s head tingle.

     Most of the activities devised by the Fun factory were less absorbing than rearing a pet. Learning to make a gin martini, going to a salsa class. One Box contained a fountain pen and a small, leather bound journal. The instructions sheet invited her to fill the journal with ‘things no one knows about you’. She started by writing two or three sentences every day, taking pleasure in the mock-secrecy of the act, in the weight of the pen between her fingers. My favourite smell is that of gasoline, she wrote. I prefer ending up in places than setting out for them. I actually like pineapple on pizza.

     After each Box, Connie found herself reporting to Miss Dodds. She told her when she went wild swimming, and when she climbed a mounted wall. Other things the Fun Team made her do, she wrote in the journal. I smoke a cigar. I went for a midnight run. I masturbated in a public place.

     She no longer had time to sit in front of her laptop, staring motionlessly at the open document named ‘Action and Intention in Macbeth’. Instead, like odd bits of string, sherds of verses destined for the book started to mingle with the confessions on the pages of her notebook. What’s done is done and cannot be undone. She told Miss Dodds when she went to see Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House. I dislike butter. I dislike the shy and the insecure. She went to a wine tasting. She went bungee-jumping. Strange things I have in head that will to hand. She crashed a wedding reception. I like grapefruit juice, she wrote in the journal, because it tastes like poison.

     She picked someone from a club, the strangest activity the Fun Team had devised for her yet. It had been years since she’d slept with anyone but Ben. When they made love - Ben had gotten her out of the nasty habit of using the word ‘sex’ - when they made love, Ben used to be gentle to the point of exasperation. The roughest it would get would be a perfunctory slap, on her tight, on her buttock. The first time he’d done it, Connie had had to stop herself from laughing. She knew this was something Ben had learned from watching TV, or from reading Harry Potter fan fiction, because she had been his first lover, and his last. She had forgotten it could be like this; that one could actually orgasm during sex. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. Every time I see a kitchen knife I imagine cutting my wrists.

     When the Fun Team ordered her to steal a book and burn it, she chose George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. She burned it in the pyre she lit in the garden with Miss Dodds.

     There were more notifications, now, from the Fun Team, relentlessly cheering her on as she carried out the tasks they assigned her.

     Oh, you’re such a naughty girl!

     Knew you had this in you, Connie.

     You should go to jail for what you’ve done.

     She spent her weeks waiting for those notifications, the slow-moving Sunday dawns waiting for the Box, writing the journal, adding to the list of things no one knew about her. I believe in Hell. I don’t believe in Heaven. I believe this is all in my head.

     Full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife: she wrote it again and again and again, until seven pages of the notebook were filled. Then she tore them out.

                                                                                 #

On the last day of May, Connie was sitting on the kitchen floor, cross-legged, scissors in hand, when it arrived. Flat against the cardboard rested a large volume, bound in fake black leather. She heaved it onto her lap and started leafing through the pages. They were blank, with rectangles of see-through plastic closed on three sides. A photo album, empty. Connie dropped it to the floor.

     Dear Connie,

     Today, take a stroll down memory lane.

     The Fun Team

     You never know what a closed box may hold, Miss Dodds had said.

     I’m not doing this.

     She surprised herself by saying it aloud. She pursed her lips, preventing more words from escaping.

     The rest of the day she spent walking in circles. Climbing the stairs. Up and down the corridor. Avoiding the sight of the Box where she had left it by the entrance. Nemesis followed her around the house, silent, shadow-quick, bright eyes buried in the back of Connie’s head. In the evening, the notification came as usual.

     You can’t escape the past, Connie.

     Her fingers trembled on the side button of her phone: watch me. It took her a few attempts to drag the slider before the phone turned off. She stared at her reflection on the cracked black screen. Puffy-eyed, tight-lipped. A statue of salt by the bedroom door.

     She woke up in a cold pool of sweat, at 3.47 am. She knew it because she switched on her phone, even before she was completely awake. Ben’s eyes were hidden by a stack of notifications. The same message, by the same sender, repeated over a dozen times.

     You can’t escape the past, Connie.

     You can’t escape the past

     You can’t escape

     You can’t

     Dawn was breaking, cold and sallow, as she slowly turned the last page of the album. On it was a half-bust of her and Ben. Connie’s eyes on the camera, his eyes on her.

     When she went back to their room, she took the journal from her bedside table, and the fountain pen. I killed my husband.

                                                                                  #

After that, Connie could no longer tell Miss Dodds what came in the Box. Still, she enjoyed the old lady’s companionship, and the way she never questioned the scars on her arms. She liked that, when Connie said that she wanted to die, Miss Dodds said: that’s understandable.

     She liked that Miss Dodds never asked her where Nemesis was.

     On that Sunday morning, the cat had walked Connie to the door, meowing in her ears as she couched on the floor, nestling the Box between her legs. Even now, moments before everything fades, the feeling of her warm, furry body presses ghost-like against Connie’s back, like the memory of Ben’s fingers around her neck. And between her hands, coarse against her skin, the touch of the rope: when she had seen it, coiled at the bottom of the Box, Connie had thought it was for her. The shiver in her bones should have told her it was not; the Fun Team would never assign her a task she wasn’t ready to carry out.

     The rope had been too short for her. On the instruction sheet, a wordless diagram of a sailor’s knot. In the last square of the diagram, at the bottom of the page, the stylised picture of the black cat hanging from the rope had looked so uncannily like Nemesis that Connie had had to laugh.

     When last week’s Box arrived, Connie did not shake it. She did not try it for weight. She opened it, deliberately, and peered inside. She picked up the single sheet of paper that was this Box’s only content, and read the three words printed in its middle. She let it fall back into the Box. Her phone screen lit in the corner of her eye.

     Through blurred vision, she read the Fun Team notification as she pressed her thumb on the Home key. Within seconds she had pressed down on the purple Fun App and on the little ‘-’  symbol that had appeared in its right-hand corner, to make the app disappear. And disappear it did, so swiftly it may never have existed. It took some more fumbling to find the subscription management page. She couldn’t see the Fun Factory among her subscriptions. She assumed that that was gone, too.

     But the words were still there, neon-bright against her cornea, a maddening metallic reverberation inside her ears. No ‘Dear Connie’, on the last notification the Fun Team would ever send her. No ‘Enjoy your Box’. Just one quote, the same printed on the sheet of paper in the Box:

     Sleep no more.

                                                                            #

There have been no more notifications. No messages. Nothing.

     (If there were something, you would have known. You never close your eyes anymore. Shut eyelids are like the closed lids of a box. Deceitful. No way of knowing what’s inside.)

     When the doorbell rings this morning, it finds you sitting on the stairs, leafing through the photo album. You jerk your eyes from Ben’s. You know immediately that it has come. It seems silly, now, to have believed it wouldn’t. Just because you deleted a tiny purple square from your screen. Just because your phone has finally gone quiet.

     The Box is empty. No, it’s not. Look, there’s the sheet of paper you were waiting for, lying on the cardboard bottom. You turn the paper, your smile quivers. You expected better than typed instructions. Because they are superfluous, because you already knew what to do. You expected more.

     Still, you follow them. You climb the stairs, all the way up to the attic. Nothing stands between the door you have just opened and the French window, only a few steps of dusty wooden floor. You can walk them, you have walked them before. This time, you won’t be left up here, when the fight is over. You won’t have to wait alone for the silence at the end of the scream. Perhaps you won’t hear the scream at all; you had turned into an art, by the end, trapping your fear behind pursed lips.

     It is easy to open the window. It doesn’t squeak, but silently obliges.

     The day is clear. It rained all night, washing the sky a pale blue that’s a faint, distorted memory of home. Sunday morning rushes in, kisses you goodbye.

     You look down at the garden, still soft from the rain; in the flowerbeds, a host of poppies raise their scarlet heads.