Hey everyone, looking for feedback, good or bad on this short story I
wrote a few weeks ago!

The Box

There's this box, and as far as boxes go it's pretty normal enough.
Brown, battered – shut with parcel tape and a hole in the top, just
large enough for an eye to peer through.

It's normal enough except for a sign next to it that reads;

`INSIDE THIS BOX YOU CAN SEE GOD'

As you can imagine, the queues are huge.

Stretching for miles, blocks around the city. The Priest who found it
isn't charging a penny, he says it's unethical.

"God is everywhere," he says, "he just happens to be in the box more
than anywhere else."

A kid comes on TV after looking in the box, he says that God looks
like a Hippo and millions of people tune into the `Box' Channel to
see it.

A vote on the internet concludes that forty percent of people think
that God looked like their spouse, and twenty percent say God looked
like their Boss.

Then the critics come out, some claim they never saw a thing when
they looked in the Box, but the fear in their voices, and the pale
tint of their features gives it all away.

Everyone sees something…

The Priest who found it, he appears on TV, on the `Box' Channel, says
he had a vision – he saw the Angel Gabriel, and the Angel Gabriel
told him that there would be a Box, and in the Box would be God.

Or at least some form of God.

"What did you see, when you looked in the Box?" the reporters ask him.

But he won't say.

It's still enough for a new chapter in the Bible to be written, The
Book of The Box. Sales of the Bible rocket.

Ten percent of the world think that they saw a new born baby in the
Box. Fifteen percent saw George Bush. Two Point Five percent saw
Saddam.

One ancient Chinese monk, flown in specially, only days before death
saw a weeping willow with autumn leaves.

It said `Hello' to him.

Celebrities from all over the world come, some talk to the Box, for
good luck. Some say they have visions of the future.

The Box gets its own column in a paper.

Pretty soon after, it gets a whole magazine.

One young girl says she saw a pretty dress.

And everyone sees something.

The Priest who found it is knighted in England, and made a Saint. The
Box is moved to the Vatican over Christmas. Tourist trade in Rome
quadruples.

After that, the Box starts touring the world, parades are held in its
honour. Soldiers going to war look into the Box before leaving.

Five percent of people say they see themselves, three percent see
their parents.

Still everyone sees something.

The British Prime Minister says he sees his country, thriving with
prosperity while a particularly controversial law is about to be
passed. It gets dismissed as trying to pander to the public.

The Box appears in the directors boxes at Football matches, it gets
carried down the red carpet at movie premieres. It rides up front
with the pilot on the first flight of the new Air Force One.

One man says inside the Box he saw himself looking inside the Box,
seeing himself looking inside the Box, seeing himself looking inside
the Box and so on. Many Philosophers agree with him, but refuse to
look into the Box as it "might give the game away."

A dog looks into the Box and the next day refuses to go for walkies.

And still, everyone sees something.

Then one day, the sky is grey and the raining starts and the Box is
missing. The Priest who found it, claims kidnap! And a police task
force is set with the task of recovering it. They think a ransom note
will show up within a week or so.

But no note arrives.

They wait days, weeks and eventually months for any sign. But they
get nothing.

Religious critics say that it probably was God, but he was unhappy
with how we treated him. "It was all a test of human faith and we
failed!" they cry. They conclude that Armageddon is right round the
corner and run into the mountains to pray in solitude.

Aging rock and pop stars record a Charity song pleading for the Box's
safe return. It stays at number one for nearly a year. But there is
still no sign.

The `Box' Channel plays reruns, videos of people saying what they
saw. One middle aged woman crying, saying she saw her Uncle who used
to beat her as a child.

And then, fifteen boxes show up in England, seventeen in Africa,
three in Australia and twenty six in America. All of them claim to be
The Box. They all look the same, Brown, battered – shut with parcel
tape and a hole in the top, just large enough for an eye to peer
through.

They're normal enough except for a sign next to it that reads;

`INSIDE THIS BOX YOU CAN SEE GOD'

And everyone looks again. In one box after another.

Only this time it's different.

The first thousand people see nothing.

And then the next, and soon the word is passed on. The boxes, every
single one of them, all forgeries. They are collected up and burned
on a Pyre outside St Paul's Cathedral. A crowd of worshippers
chanting religious anthems, condemning the false deity's to box hell.

Then there's no word for years.

Then out of the blue a priest in France says he saw God in his tumble
drier.

A man in Greece says God is in the engine of his Vespa.

Two builders shut down construction on a house because a girder told
them to.

And everyone finds something.

Everyone looks again.

Everyone sees something.