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"Out of the Box"
My first published short story

“Ravens in the Library” painting by Rob Carlos. Used with permission.
I wrote this short for a benefit anthology for musician S.J. Tucker, Ravens in the Library. This nugget of fiction also became part of the origin story for our musical collaborations, including several Strowlers anthems and our current project: creating an album of original music based on Mercedes Lackey’s World of Valdemar. You’ll hear a lot more soon about our upcoming releases!
The painting, titled Ravens in the Library, is created by fantasy artist Rob Carlos. I have had the pleasure of commissioning artwork from Rob for several of my projects, including The Gamers, JourneyQuest, and Mercedes Lackey’s Grandmaster.
Both Rob and Sooj are wonderful people and tremendous artists. I’m lucky to have them in my life!

OUT OF THE BOX
by Ben Dobyns
More than anything else in the world, Lady Ashton Ermaline Weatherbie longed for a husband of her very own. Unfortunately, her mother's vehement disagreement regarding the subject of Lady Ashton's marriage was eternal and unshakable.
"Sarah Jennifer Maxworth," her mother would exclaim in her most exasperated voice, "You will do no such thing. You're far too young to be thinking about marriage. Now eat your Cheerios."
Primly, Lady Ashton lifted her porcelain teacup to her lips, pinky extended as far as it would reach, sipped her Earl Grey, and – in the finest English accent an eleven-year-old girl raised in the Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center could muster – replied. "While I may still seem eleven to you, mother, I have resided in this dismal manor far past the age when I ought to have been wed. If it is not suitable for us to discuss the question of my nuptials as reasonable adults, I shall have no choice but to take matters into my own hands. Perhaps I shall even elope."
"And what would you do with a husband if you had one?" her mother asked.
"Whatever I wanted, I should imagine," answered Lady Ashton with remarkable dignity and poise. "I would likely feed him to the alligators."
Her mother, hastily stuffing scattered mathematics and history and science textbooks into Sarah's much-despised designer backpack, merely grunted. Sarah sniffed a very English sniff and barely had time to finish her breakfast before her mother rushed her off to school.

Slouched at her desk – which smelled of new plastic and paste – at the Walnut Creek Charter School, Sarah paid scant notice to her teacher or her classmates. Instead, she dreamed of large English estates, of young and tragically wounded soldiers returned home from the wars, of nursing aged parents in their final dim days, and of the endless green grasses, wooded ponds, mysterious brambles, caretaker's cottages, and overgrown hedge mazes one might happen upon while exploring, especially if one were a nearly fey daughter of an English lord.
It was while she was lost in such a daydream, one of mists, magic, and vague intimations of secret betrothals, that Sarah Jennifer Maxworth first imagined her cloak. It was in her sewing and homemaking elective that she created and patterned and sewed each patch, and in the halls of the school, the winding neighborhood streets, and the quaint franchised eateries of the Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center that she wore it. Amidst the other children, in their muted khakis and earth-toned sweaters, she was a garish slash of fashion non-compliance – red, yellow, blue, and purple patches, colors swirled and sewn together with haphazard passion, folds of fabric draping from her shoulders to her ankles. To Lady Ashton Ermaline Weatherbie, it was a Cloak of Husband Attraction. To everyone else, it was “Sarah’s horrid thing.”
At school, the staff decided – after a particularly contentious faculty meeting – that it would be a betrayal of their educational ideals to forbid Sarah from wearing her cloak. "After all," they said, "children will self-correct minor deviancies quickly when their peers are modeling socially normative behaviors."
At City Hall, Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center's top elected officials watched through their binoculars as Sarah wandered through town, then muttered and shook their heads.
And at home, Sarah's long-suffering mother and father tried to reason with their daughter. "After all," her mother said, "You don't want your friends to tease, do you?"
"It looks hideous," her father remarked from behind his Journal of Legal Review. "You'd be laughed out of court."
"Nonsense," exclaimed Lady Ashton to both her father and mother. "If I'm not wearing my cloak, my husband will find it quite impossible to recognize me."
Lady Ashton took her own private pleasure in being banished to her room without supper. It was a veryEnglish punishment.
Nonetheless, Sarah's parents were right. The cloak disturbed people. It was too bright. Too handmade. Too ostentatious. To be perfectly frank, it was just too damn different. And the students, teachers, and townsfolk passed their discomfort on to Lady Ashton. The students teased her for being too proud to wear name-brand clothing. The teachers assumed that Sarah, who would not self-correct her deviancy, was a dimwit and ignored her. The townsfolk simply gawked from behind their non-fat lattes. And not without reason.
You see, at the Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center, back when it was merely Walnut Creek, the developers and the bank and the lawyers had all put their pens to paper with great and noble intent. They had planned the curving streets, strategically placed trees, paperboard mansions, tiny fenced backyards, and town center to be entirely perfect and self-sufficient. It was a place so immaculate that even the rain and clouds knew better than to disrupt the town's perpetual blue skies. The only reason its denizens ever left the gated safety of the Walnut Creek Compound was to work at stable, mind-numbing jobs, or for socially approved outings to the more cultured museums or the much-lauded golf course. The Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center provided for all other wants, most especially a respectability designed to ensure that its residents felt eternally comfortable and safe.
That respectable image did not include the presence of little girls who wore bright colors and spoke in loud English accents. Something would have to be done.

One sunny day, a day exactly like any other at the Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center, found Sarah on a bench in the Walnut Creek Park, sobbing in a manner befitting neither a well-bred English lady nor a sophisticated Walnut Creek resident. Just why she cried was known only to her Ladyship’s husbandless, friendless self. Suddenly she became aware that she was not alone on her miserable bench.
Vaguely embarrassed that she had been observed in such an undignified state, Sarah instantly ceased crying and turned with suspicion to the man next to her. It took but a moment for Sarah to identify him – middle-aged, dressed in a fine tailored suit, clean-shaven, with an air about him of ruthless respectability – as the thrice-elected Mayor of the Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"What does any man want?" he replied. "Peace, responsibility, prosperity, and a clean reelection campaign."
Sarah arched a suspicious eyebrow.
"Listen, you repugnant demon child," he remarked, with a practiced blandness that belied the intensity of his meaning, "Your multi-hued and blubbery use of this park bench is disturbing the tranquility of my humble village green. And mind you, this is not the first time I have seen you so arrayed and so hysterical."
"I have every right to be here, good sir. Per section 30-C, subsection 8-F of the Walnut Creek Community Covenant, this park is here for all manner of legal uses, not the least of which being a good cry."
"Yes, yes, of course – technically you are correct," agreed the Mayor. "I merely pondered the notion that you and I could reach a mutual understanding. To wit, the question: what might I do for you to ensure that your flagrant displays of clothes and behaviors that violate the spirit of our community covenant will in the future be suitably hidden behind closed doors?"
Sarah smiled uncertainly. Despite his malicious and mocking words, if anyone could help her, it would be the Mayor.
"Well, sir," she replied, "I desperately want a husband, but I have been unable to provide myself with one, and my quest has been met with naught but derision from family and friends alike."
"Is that all?" asked the Mayor. "And what, pray, would you do with a husband?"
"Whatever I wished, I suppose. Probably feed him to the alligators."
"In that case," declared the Mayor with a flourish, "Our problems are mutually solved. I just happen to have an extra husband somewhere here . . . One surely destined for a girl attired in such a unique cloak."
He patted his pockets, one after another, then – upon locating the object of his search – withdrew a small box from his suit jacket, and handed it to Sarah.
"What is this?" she asked.
"Look inside," the Mayor replied.
So Sarah did, through a clever peephole in the intricately patterned lid. Inside the box, a very small man, dressed all in bright patchwork colors, looked up at her. Sarah reached for the box's elaborate latch.
"Be careful!" exclaimed the Mayor. "You must never let your new husband out of the box, or something horrible will surely transpire."
"Horrible, like what?"
"Once he's out the box, he will undoubtedly run amok, destroying any manner of things that you love. And this husband is a wily one, so be careful, or you'll be letting him out of there in no time. Then he'll escape, and that will be that."
The Mayor stood, clasped his briefcase, and began to amble away. Then stopped, turned, and spoke, his words striking Sarah with the force of prophecy: "This is the only husband you get, Sarah Jennifer Maxworth. Ever. And as an expression of your gratitude toward me, your gracious benefactor, you must henceforth be well-behaved, or you will end up in the next box yourself. And oh, yes. By the power vested in me, et-cetera, I now pronounce you man and wife. Good day."

And so Sarah began her new life with her new husband. At school, she wore the same clothes as her peers. In the park and the shops, she was the model of youthful decorum. At home, she obeyed her parents with grace and humility. But in her room, where her husband resided in his little box, she was Lady Ashton Ermaline Weatherbie, who wore bright colors and funny hats, danced, sang, and spun madly, and dreamed of the day she might come of age and escape from within the high walls of the Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center.
But oh, the husband! He was a sight. And an earful. Mind you, his voice was small and terribly high-pitched, but if Sarah put her ear right next to the box, she could hear him quite clearly.
The first time he spoke was quite a shock to Lady Ashton's refined sensibilities. She was lying on her bed and holding the box to her eye, that she might watch the little man inside. This night he wore a baggy yellow suit, his long hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he was spinning two small balls on long chains – which Sarah would later learn to call poi – in mesmerizing, elaborate patterns.
Then Sarah's elbows slipped and the box slipped and the little husband slipped and his poi hit him square between the eyes. A swarm of graphic expletives, the likes of which Sarah and her sex-ed teacher had never imagined, flew from the box like angry mosquitoes. Enraptured by the creative and educational nature of his tirade – and touched that his ire was directed entirely at circumstance, rather than at Sarah herself – Sarah couldn't help but applaud her husband's linguistic feats with enthusiasm.
After that, it was inevitable that Sarah and her miniature husband would soon become best friends.
He was the finest playmate an eleven-year-old could imagine. He knew all kinds of stories, always was there to listen to her troubles, and constantly encouraged her to express the whims of her headstrong muse.
When Sarah turned twelve, he sang a birthday song for her so funny that she immediately vowed to write a song for him, which she did.
When she turned thirteen and her body changed, he never once complained when she began to face the box and its peephole toward the wall while she dressed.
When she turned fourteen, she begged and he taught her how to play her father’s old guitar.
At fifteen, Sarah made her own set of poi, just like her husband's, and he shouted frantic advice while she systematically broke everything there was to break in her room.
At sixteen, he whispered words of encouragement to her when she put her bright and flashy clothes back on, donned her cloak, put on a funny hat, slung her guitar over her back, and went down to The Walnut Creek Park to sing to the pigeons – at least until The Walnut Creek Security Strike Force marched her back home to her long-suffering parents.
At seventeen, Sarah stuffed her husband into the back of her closet and invited sweet Jamie Baumgartner to share her bed when her parents were away on a business trip. Several weeks later, she remembered her husband and dug him out again. But no matter how much she cajoled, begged, apologized, and otherwise tempted the tiny man, he refused to talk to her and sat sullenly with his back to the peephole. A funny song about a spaceship had no effect. A virtuoso poi performance went unseen. Clothes, hats, singing, dancing: to all of these Sarah's husband remained impassive, refusing to be entertained or appeased.
After this had gone on for a month, Sarah decided that she could play along too. With great ceremony she dressed in her finest clothes and cloak, snatched her guitar and poi – the totality of everything that was important in her life – picked up her husband in his box, and walked straight toward the Walnut Creek Shopping Center, where the City Hall offices resided just up the stairs from the Starbucks franchise.
It was no accident that Sarah positioned the box in her hands so that its peephole directly faced her destination.
"Where are you taking me?" The plaintive voice wafted from the box to Sarah's ears.
"You've clearly become irreconcilably unhappy with me," she answered. "So I'm returning you to the Mayor."
"Oh, please, no!" he shouted. "Anything but that! He'll feed me to his lizard. He'll grind my bones for bread. He'll sink my feet in concrete and use me as a paperweight. Please, let's just talk about this."
"Fine." The curt word dropped like ice from her lips. "Let's talk."
Ignoring the silent disapproval of passing housewives and their stroller-bound offspring, Sarah settled onto a low stone wall bordering a flowerbed and addressed the box in her hand. "OK," she demanded. "Talk."
Through the peephole, Sarah could see her husband's cheeks as they flushed with red. Despite herself, the sight made her breast flutter with affection. In a gentler tone, she spoke again. "I'm ready to listen now."
So Sarah's husband told his story. He spoke of life before the box, of travels from one side of America to the other, of anarchists and pagans and queers and subversives and bikers and hippies and loggers and farmers and shopkeepers, of all the people he had known, of their variety and humanity and their commonalities. Then he spoke of arriving at The Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center. Of how he spun his poi in The Walnut Creek Park. Of how The Walnut Creek Security Strike Force frog-marched him off to a cell, where they abandoned him. Of how every day the Mayor would stop by and ask that he give up his poi and accept the Walnut Creek Community Covenant into his heart. Of how every day he would refuse and the cell would grow smaller and he would shrink with it, until he had reached his current diminutive size – no longer big enough to threaten all that was sacred and holy to the developers and the bank and the lawyers, whose collective will had manifested the Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Center in all its majesty.
"That's perfectly awful," Sarah exclaimed.
Her husband nodded.
"All these years, why didn't you say anything?"
"Would you have believed me, Lady Ashton?"
She shook her head. Her husband was right. Even six years later, echoes of the Mayor's warning still resonated within her, like a novelty Christmas song stuck on an infinite loop inside your brain, the kind you would do anything to be rid of.
"Let me out," he said. "Let me be free. I don't belong in your closet, or facing the wall, or in this fucking box. Let me out."
So she did.
She unlatched the box's ornate clasp, opened the lid, and let her husband out.
With a shout he leaped from the lip of the box to the ground, and as he fell, he grew, so that by the time he had hit the ground, he was as tall as Sarah, then taller, then even taller. On his face was a grin and in his hands were his poi.
He began to spin his poi, slowly at first, then faster and faster. What a sight Sarah and her husband were: he in yellow and gold, she in green and purple and blue, wild fabrics and dancing bodies that screamed "Look at me, I'm here and I'm AWESOME!" From a great distance, The Walnut Creek Security Strike Force ran toward them, shouting and waving their tasers.
But as The Walnut Creek Security Strike Force drew closer, Sarah's husband's poi burst into flame . . . and burned The Walnut Creek American Lifestyle Community and Shopping Centre to the ground.

Some time later, when the flames and smoke had subsided, Sarah and her husband, their faces streaked with soot, marveled at Walnut Creek’s destruction, which extended all the way to its borders, but not one inch beyond.
"Now what?" Sarah asked.
Her husband bowed a deep, sardonic bow, turned his back to her, and began to saunter away.
"Husband," she called.
"That's not my name," he said without turning back.
"Then what is?"
"If you ever care to find me again, I'll tell you."
With that, he was gone.
There Sarah stood, alone among the ashes as the rain began to fall. Slowly, slowly, she grinned, hefted her guitar over her shoulder, and hit the road.

Prints of Rob Carlos’s Ravens in the Library are available from the artist directly on his website.
©2025 Ben Dobyns, All Rights Reserved