One of the most mysterious flash fiction stories I have read is called the Nightmare Box, written by Chuck Palahniuk. The Nightmare Box highlights the mere line between reality and fiction, and also shows how fragile the human mind can be. In addition, The Nightmare Box offers underlying meanings and symbolic ideas beneath with the story. The story itself keeps the reader highly focus and anticipating every next step and scene. In a retrospective, this story is tantalizing, addictive, and exceptionally mysterious.
In summary, the Nightmare Box is a story in which there is a black, “lacquered” box at a gallery that’s ticking. And whenever the ticking stops (No one knows how long it ticks, could be hours, days, weeks) whoever looks into it will experience a mind-altering experience in which the person mentally breaks down.
The story itself evolves around a black box that shows such mind-blowing visions, that anyone who looks inside the box goes psychotic.
The story begins with Cassandra Clark, and she is suffering from her nervous breakdown after she looked into the Box at an art-gallery opening. Her mother, or so it seems, is more …show more content…
The reader must wonder what in the box can make a human being lunatic and throw away their lives? From my understanding, altering what we now view as reality can be so frightening and can turn our lives into borderline illusion/fantasy. And that’s what Palahniuk implies throughout the story; is our life really what it seems to be? Also, from reading and rereading the story plethora of times, the story indicates that the curiosity and obsession displayed by Mrs. Clark highly suggests that she is also in fact, delusional. The story shows the affect of the Box is a two way street. Mrs. Clark overwhelming need to learn about the box has caused her to look beyond her daughter’s mental state of mind and spend her energy in understanding the mysterious
In summary, the Nightmare Box is a story in which there is a black, “lacquered” box at a gallery that’s ticking. And whenever the ticking stops (No one knows how long it ticks, could be hours, days, weeks) whoever looks into it will experience a mind-altering experience in which the person mentally breaks down.
The story itself evolves around a black box that shows such mind-blowing visions, that anyone who looks inside the box goes psychotic.
The story begins with Cassandra Clark, and she is suffering from her nervous breakdown after she looked into the Box at an art-gallery opening. Her mother, or so it seems, is more …show more content…
The reader must wonder what in the box can make a human being lunatic and throw away their lives? From my understanding, altering what we now view as reality can be so frightening and can turn our lives into borderline illusion/fantasy. And that’s what Palahniuk implies throughout the story; is our life really what it seems to be? Also, from reading and rereading the story plethora of times, the story indicates that the curiosity and obsession displayed by Mrs. Clark highly suggests that she is also in fact, delusional. The story shows the affect of the Box is a two way street. Mrs. Clark overwhelming need to learn about the box has caused her to look beyond her daughter’s mental state of mind and spend her energy in understanding the mysterious