Fiction
3 min
Pandora's Box
Eva Yu
Part I. Greed
From Persephone to Pandora:
Curiosity and greed are two sides of the same coin.
Greed was the bird that chirped for me when no one else would. He stood like an effigy between me and the box. "Open it, and the Gods will give you everything you've dreamed of." And suddenly, I was Persephone, licking pomegranates from my fingertips, yearning for a taste of what the box promised.
In the way that fear of what could happen is stronger than belief of what will happen, I clung to the box like the last shred of false hope in a broken body of bones.
One look. One look can't hurt.
Part II. Violence
From Ares to Pandora:
At the heart of hatred, there is love.
The box was a blend of wonder and everything terrible.
My mother was an atheist, my father Catholic. I grew up in the limbo between faith and hollow belonging.
The box was nothing but a farce, one that made my heart cave slowly onto itself. And hope was a dove that was no longer white. Sometimes, I wish I could snap its neck and bury it in my mother's orchard.
Mother was always scared—not for me, but of me. She was scared of the side I inherited from Dad, the one built on Diet Coke and broken optimism. She was afraid that the long black hair and obsidian eyes she gave me wouldn't fit, even in my own body. And she was afraid her last name, which carried thousands of years of history, would be erased by one that was easier to pronounce.
Mother's box didn't hold great things. The antique was passed on from mother to daughter, generation through generation. But there was nothing inside, because the women in my family were all hollow creatures, broken and seeking horizons that didn't exist.
Mother was a liar until the bitter end.
Part III. Sorrow
From Prometheus to Pandora:
The will of humanity is stronger than that of the Gods.
My mother, who was now dead or gone or worst of all, happy, used to tell me that one day I would understand her choices. But I've always understood. It was simple really: every disappointment made mother love me a little less.
Mother only loved me when my name was whispered at family dinners and compared to my white cousins. She didn't know what they were saying, but she knew they were talking, and that made her happy.
"Pandora darling, one day, you'll make the world see that an immigrant can raise a wonder."
Mother said father's family didn't like her because she was too skinny and too polite. I think she was making it up, because grandma always treated me kindly, and I looked like mother.
Apparently, It wasn't the same for me because I was family. Mother was just a woman that Dad occasionally loved, which meant she could also be a stranger.
Like humans were created to be, I was greedy for mother's love, and even more so for Dad's acceptance. Empty boxes with empty hopes brought with it sorrow that couldn't quite be put into words.
They'll see one day, mother; they'll see that you are just as good.
Part IV. Madness
From Pandora to Mother
...
Today, Grandma died. I guess I should've seen it coming. Her health has been steadily deteriorating ever since you and father got divorced, but it still hit when I saw them bury the urn that was supposed to be my grandma into the ground. I guess you don't have to fight so hard to be accepted anymore.
When Persephone brings you back with her, when the flowers bloom, I'll bury you next to Grandma. So you can be equal in death.
Part V. Hope
From Pandora to Pandora
...
Mother names me after a famous myth because Pandora is the root of all evil. A human who is inscribed into the scripture of Gods, she doesn't belong and so they make the worst out of her.
But I'm here, a mortal, whose story outshines those of the Gods.
I'm kind of glad Grandma died. Her death smelled like the sky after a rainstorm and the sound of the bell ringing on the last day of school. I guess that was it then. Years of suffering only to realize being accepted into the unaccepting is a curse.
Hope is a white dove, and mine lives inside a hollow jewelry box that I'll pass down to my daughter, in hopes that one day her dove will also take flight.
This was an entry for a writing contest held in conjunction with Center for Fiction and The Decameron Project
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