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One, two, three, four. You concentrate on counting the boxes in front of you. You take in their colors and shapes. The order in which they are standing. The texture you expect them to be without ever touching their walls and covers. One, two, three, four. You ignore the fifth box that appeared between blinking of your eyes. It's not important. It is not there. You cannot focus on it, you mustn't. There are already plenty of boxes. You cannot afford counting in another one, regardless of the pattern that is begging for your attention. One, two, three, four. First is green with yellow stripes. It reminds you of a shoebox. This is the most important one. The only one that should have been there before you lost focus. Second one is blue, with smooth, glittering walls. The cover has a little clef in the middle. That damned clef that made you focus too much and made the tiny box stay. There are once again only four boxes. Third box is blue, pink and white, like your friend's flag. You recognized the pattern rightaway, which is the reason why the heart-shaped box is still there. Fourth box is rather tall, as if meant for a bottle of wine. Little leaves pertruding the walls smell like pinetrees, which is unusual. Your favourite smell made you wish this box could stay, and it did. One, two, three, four. There is not a fifth box, despite its beautiful purple wrapping. You used to have a plastic dinosaur like that, Armsie, a lovely T-rex that-

Damn it.

One, two, three, four, five.

You know you cannot get distracted anymore. If the creature comes back here and sees there are more than 7 boxes, your fate is sealed. Just like that sixth both that- NO. There is not a sixth box. Just five. They stand in front of you, just five. You only look at them and nothing else. You ignore any other containers. You ignore their colors, patterns, smells. You ignore the wobbly sounds behind you. You ignore the mangled corpse in the corner, the remains of those who let the si-FIVE boxes to multiply until there's seven. One, two, three, four, five. Green and yellow. Glittering blue. Trans heart. Tall leafy pine. Armsie purple. Pumpkin o- NO. It's not the ime to think of Halloween. You feel sweat dripping down your forehead. You can do this. You know there cannot be much time left. You could check the clock, but you cannot risk more boxes to appear when you're not looking. They could stay. They cannot stay. There are only five boxes. That's what you keep telling yourself. You count them. One, two, three, four, five. You knew that coming to this place was a mistake, but you just couldn't turn down a bet, could you. Your cousin has always been a jerk, and you wanted to stand up the her just this once. You hoped that if you came to the 'cursed house', she would stop mocking you. And you came in. You met the creature. You were forced into this game. Look at the green stripped box and focus. Why couldn't you focus? Why did you have to let your head wander into other places? If you could just keep looking at this one box, there would not be six boxes in front of you. Green, blue, heart-

Wait, six boxes?

Damn it.

The brown cardboard box with pinaple stickers is there, is it not. Yeah, you can see it. Your cousin always had a hairstyle that reminded you of a pinapple and here you are. You have to focus. One, two, three, four, five, six. The green and yellow box is right in front of you. The blue shimmering one is on a stool on your left. The trans heart it leaning against a bucket. The tall one with leaves is next to the bucket, on a rag. The purple Armsie one is on the shelf on your left. The cardboard one is just next to your right hand. One, two, three, four, five, six, ignore the pink ignore the pink ignore the pi-

Damn it.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

The white bear experiment popped up in your head the second it was too late. The pink box that seems to have a musicbox inside is here to stay.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. There cannot be more boxes, you cannot let there be more.

You try to decide what texture the green and yellow box would have on your tongue. You try to imagine the taste of paper and dust. Then you try to imagine the feeling of purple box on your nose. The more you focus on the seven boxes and imagine how they would feel on your skin and tongue, or the possible smell, makes you focus more. You ignore different boxes trying to pop into existance every now and then. And you can feel it's working. You are so occupied with perceiving the six boxes that you almost didn't notice the creeking of door behind you.

The creature is here. You can feel hair on your neck rising as its warm breath washes over your skin. Smell of Borax and rotting flesh fills your nostrils, the green glow of it's many eyes makes your head cast a shadow on a wall. You can tell it's seething. You didn't let the boxes multiply anymore. That would be your funeral, and you think to yourself that it would not be an open casket. Which reminds you, you always thought that if you were a vampire, your coffin would be dark and elegant, with purple silk pillows inside of it, just like the one that... just... appeared...

The eighth box.

And the creature chuckled.

#writing practise #short horror story #horror #box #focus test

Focus Test

#photography #nature #focus test #personal #my photos

Testing manual focus. Not bad for these old eyes

#focus test #nikkor 50mm f1.4

The focus test guy sort of patted me on the back and said, "Sorry, this game is going to be a failure." That was one of those moments where you either accept the fact that somebody tells you you're a loser, or you double down and say, "The fight's not over yet."

Ken Levine, on Bioshock

#ken levine #focus test #bioshock #creativeprocess #videogames