THE BOX OF BROKEN PROMISES Lately, Vera had begun to suspect there was someone else living in the h…

THE BOX OF FORGOTTEN PROMISES

For a while now, I have been suspecting that someone else lives in our house besides Emily and me. Not a ghost, mind you. Ghosts, in my opinion, are far too dignified to bother with such trivialities as this.

No, this was plain mischief. Like a sort of English house sprite.

It started with my running socksthe white ones with the red stripe. Both always visible in the drawer, practically taunting me: When was the last time you even wore us? Then, just like that, one vanished. At first, I assumed the washing machine was up to its usual tricksanyone who does laundry can relate. But these socks were always there, waiting. Suddenly, one went missing, and the other disappeared the next day.

A week passed, and I found both in the exact same spot, curled up like snails. On top lay a crumpled, greyish bit of paper with clumsy block letters:

“You forgot us for 127 days. We kept track.”

I immediately rounded on Emily, who was scrolling through the news on her phone in the lounge. “Is this you dropping hints? Are you trying to tell me I need to start running again?”

She shot me a bewildered look and firmly denied it.

“Fine,” I muttered, although I wasnt fully convinced. Emily does have a sly sense of humour, after all.

Then her favourite hair clip vanishedthe one always left on the hall mirror. Soon after, a fancy lipstick she reserved for ‘special occasions’ also went missing from her handbag.

She discovered both later in the kitchen cupboard, wedged between bags of basmati rice and penne pasta. Each was accompanied by its own note.

On the hair clip: “Make up your mindlong or short hair? Im tired of being abandoned for ages, only for you to pine after me again.”

On the lipstick: “And when exactly was the last ‘special occasion’? Im starting to dry up here.”

“This isnt funny,” Emily snapped at me one evening, shaking my shoulder as I dozed off before Sunday roast.

“Are you daft?” I grumbled, wide awake now. “Why would I prank myself with this nonsense?”

She had a point. Even at my most mischievous, this was a stretch. Still, the whole thing left us unsettled.

From then on, Emily became systematic about remembering where she put things. Shed retrace her steps repeatedly and even went to see Dr. Holland for advice. After running a few tests, the elderly GP cheerily declared her memory was better than his.

But the disappearances continued.

Favourite pens vanished. A stripy blouse. Some fancy hand cream.

And worst of allthe keys to my dads allotment. The week that followed, I couldnt help but sigh dramatically every time I walked past her.

Emily became jittery: sleeping poorly, flinching at every small sound, moving her phone, keys and wallet from place to place all the time.

Then, one unusually still Saturday, she decided it was finally time to sort out the wardrobesa chore long overdue. Sifting through boxes, she discovered all the missing things stashed neatly in a leftover shoebox, arranged as if on display in an old charity shop.

The blouse was folded together with a short pleated skirt. A note read: “Have you forgotten how to dance?”

The pens, sorted by colour, with another: “You chew us when youre nervous. Were tired of living under stress.”

The keys, woven together with their keychain, as if holding hands: “We only wandered off to stave off boredomno one visits the allotment anymore. But, unlike some, weve come back by ourselves.”

Emily stood there, stunned.

There was something both cheeky and wisebut also a bit melancholyabout these scraps of paper. It was as if shed written them herself in a parallel lifea life with time enough for conversations even with small forgotten things.

She was about to put the lid back on the box when she glimpsed another little grey square at the very bottom. This one was just a note, nothing attached.

The letters wobbled and blurred, as if tears had stained the paper:

“You once promised the girl in the mirror you’d become an artist.
I am that girl.
And its so lonely here in the box with all the promises and dreams that never made it.”

Emily sat on the carpet in the wardrobe for a long time, her back pressed to the overloaded shelves, lost in memories.

There she was at nursery, tongue out in concentration, drawing a house, the sun, a familymum, dad, and her little sisterwith felt-tip pens. At school art lessons, shed felt joy seeing watercolour swirl so gently over wet paper. The smell of oil paints in the art studio. Silent wanderings through galleries. Each brushstroke felt like a bit of magica melody. The eager explanations from the gallery guide.

At first, she imagined all that would be her life.

Then a hobby. A refuge.

Then nothing.

Not because she didnt have time. Shed just kept postponing it, finding things she said were more important and urgent. Until one day, that warm, bright spark of anticipation simply vanished, just like the socks, pens, or keys.

She ran her finger over the last note.

For a moment, she felt sure the paper was alivewarmer, almost trembling. Or perhaps her own hand was shaking.

Was another hour in a department store or another TV drama really more important than a dream?

That night, Emily tossed and turned, unable to sleep. At two in the morning, she gave up and crept out of bed.

“Where are you going?” I mumbled, barely awake.

“Go back to sleep,” she murmured.

Somewhere among the boxes in the wardrobe, I spotted the old set of paints, she must have thought. Passing the hall mirror, Emily caught the gaze of that same little girlfrightened, but finally, with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

And theres my lesson: our forgotten promises rarely disappearthey simply wait for us to bring them back into the light.