Without (perhaps) fully meaning to, he became something of a fixture in the set of streets he’d frequent. He was certainly a spectacle, pulling the old Radio-Flyer wagon with its Plexiglas package. The day to day trivialities of maintaining his physical appearance had been largely jettisoned in favor the more pressing needs of the moment. He looked more than vaguely unkempt, but as he had yet to develop that certain cast of demeanor that marks the deeply disturbed and still managed to find his way to the shower and laundry often enough to avoid emanating offensive smells, he did manage to interact with other human beings. It helped that his was an honest, openly curious face almost totally free of judgments, and the wagon was enough of a curiosity to attract its fair share of spectators.

It really was quite a scene; a grown man, apparently in full possession of his facilities, pulling about a little red wagon. What was truly fascinating however, was the contents of that wagon. It appeared as though the Plexiglas box had been designed specifically for the wagon, it was a snug fit around the perimeter, which kept the box from rattling too much as the wagon jostled over cracks in the sidewalk, the box extended another six inches above the wagon’s wooden fencing and all along the top a series of air-holes had been drilled, each about the width of a pencil.

At first glance the box appeared to be empty, which only deepened the mystery. Some of the local wags, who rarely left their porches and had never directly communicated with the man, speculated that it had once been a cage for a beloved pet and that the death of said creature had been the final factor in the unhinging of his mind. Anyone who had actually talked to him, and taken a good look at the Plexiglas container would tell you that it was not empty. What it was that was contained – well that was another matter entirely. It was certain however, that there was something in the box.

Reaction to the box varied as wildly as the permutations of spectator allowed. Imagine if you will a blank canvas hung on the wall of a museum and presented as a masterpiece. Imagine the reactions; murmurs of appreciation from those afraid they don’t understand, derisive snorts from those who think they do, laughter, a slight feeling of unease, even downright terror.

He had been asked, on quite a few occasions, what it was that the box contained, but he never answered directly. “It’s my burden” he said one overcast day when confronted by a young man in a black trench coat with black hair and black fingernails. “My fondest wishes” he told a little girl with pig-tails who had evaded her mother’s attempts at restraining her from engaging him in conversation. “It’s a lie I told myself when I was a young man” he explained to an elderly fellow who’d emerged from his house, umbrella in hand, with the original intention of simply shooing him away from his position on the corner.

It had been a torrential rain, and he’d been staring up into the clouds, soaked to the skin. The elderly man, Henry, had caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye when he’d turned his gaze for a moment from the television to the window.

By god, he’s even out here in the rain. Henry had thought to himself, and found that he couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from the figure advancing at its usual pace. The man with the wagon had stopped on the corner and looked up. Henry had sat transfixed for a full five minutes before deciding that it was unseemly to be standing on the corner in the pouring rain with a red wagon and a Plexiglas box, and since no one else seemed to be interested in doing something about the situation; he, Henry, would.

The cops would almost certainly have been called, except Henry had witnessed this man interacting with a pair of small boys a week or two before. Something in the man’s movements had convinced him that he was harmless, perhaps it was the way he dropped down to their level, smiled easily and appeared to answer all their questions. Perhaps it was simply the fact that he’d seen the faces of the two boys as they’d walked away from the encounter, the fact that they’d turned to wave before turning the corner away from the man and his red wagon.

Henry slipped into his galoshes, withdrew his old sturdy umbrella from the stand by the door. Self-defense he half-thought, and stepped out onto his porch.

“Hallo there!” Henry had called from the steps as he descended, and the man had turned to the sound, no twitchy movements, his eyes appeared to be clear, so it couldn’t be drugs, and there was something downright normal about the way the man raised his hand in greeting.

“Are you alright?”

There was a pause, a bit longer than is to be considered polite in social settings, the man with the red wagon returned his gaze to the sky for a second, and when he turned back to Henry, water ran freely from the thin beard he wore.

“Well I suppose the glib answer would be yes and certainly I’m doing about as one can be expected to be doing, despite the evidence to the contrary, namely my sudden urge to stand here on this corner and stare upwards into a downpour. The truth is a trickier beast entirely. Insofar as I can relate the quote unquote truth to you, I’m a long way from alright. You see I’m looking for something, and I’m not entirely certain what that something is.”

There was something involuntary in the way that Henry tilted back his umbrella and cast his own eyes skyward. The man laughed.

“Oh no, I don’t expect it’s in that direction. I was simply struck by a notion, one of those fleeting fancies that you can never quite pin down, and my staring up was an attempt to clear my mind in the hope that I might be able to recapture it. Can’t say that was working too terribly well, but I suppose that might be for the best.” He glanced at the box in the wagon as he spoke, and a shudder ran across his flesh.

There was something so candid, so openly vulnerable about him in that moment that Henry felt the last of his reservations disappear, he stuck out his hand and introduced himself.

“Pleased to meet you Henry, my name is Jonah.”

“Pleasure Jonah, and if you’ll forgive an old man for asking an impertinent question: If you don’t know what you’re looking for, how will you ever find it?”

“Maybe I’m hoping it will find me.” He said, and laughed for a brief second before biting his bottom lip and cocking his head to the side, “Of course the worst case scenario is that I’ll never find it, and the looking is the only thing that matters. Either way it’s something I simply have to do, like carting this thing around.”

“You know I’ve always wondered about that-“ Henry started to say, but then he bent and took a good look at the box for the first time and fell into silence. When speech became possible again despite his continuing confusion, he asked the only logical question.