Chapter 6 - THE CARDBOARD CASTLE
The guards dropped the lower boxes to the floor.
Two of them stepped forward, holding a single, massive cardboard carton between them.
The black letters spelling Elliy were crossed out with a thick, violent marker line.
They moved with militaristic precision, cornering the blonde woman against a velvet sofa.
She sank backward, her hands raised in a desperate, trembling surrender.
The guards lifted the massive box high into the air.
In one swift, synchronized motion, they slammed the cardboard box down over the woman’s head and torso.
The heavy corrugated flaps pinned her arms to her sides.
She gasped, a muffled, panicked sound echoing from inside the brown cube.
The father walked slowly toward the trapped woman.
He stopped right beside the edge of the box.
He raised his right hand again, sliding the massive silver and diamond ring off his finger.
The camera shifted to a macro shot, the depth of field shrinking to a razor-thin margin.
The man’s heavy fingers placed the diamond ring perfectly onto the top flap of the cardboard box.
The heavy ring sat there like a royal seal on a package marked for the incinerator.
Inside the box, the darkness was suffocating.
Through a small tear in the cardboard seam, the woman looked up.
The camera caught the extreme close-up of her single, terrified blue eye peering out from the trap.
Her heavy mascara was already running, smudged by tears of absolute panic.
The father stood towering over the box, his broad silhouette blocking out the light of the crystal chandelier.
He looked down at the cardboard prison.
"It's true that someone will have to leave today."
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His voice dropped like a heavy iron vault door sealing shut.
He turned his back on the box, walking toward the little girl in the pink dress, leaving the ring sitting in the dark.
