Morning's Indication

 It was 7 o'clock in the morning, and Naomie was wondering if it was true, what her grandmother used to tell her. "The way you start your morning is the way your day goes." She really hoped that wasn't true, because her morning had started with her opening the door, stepping out, and  promptly tripping and falling, spilling her coffee all over herself. The offending object? A box. Nothing special about it. Just a small-ish box wrapped in brown packing paper.

  She took it inside, but didn't open it. She was angry. A box that behaved that way towards her had no right being opened right away. It could just sit there and rot for all she cared.

   However, as the pain and early-morning annoyance faded away, so too did Naomie’s indignation, and it was replaced with a feeling of embarrassment. Had she really just had a mental temper tantrum against a box? Obviously she should open it. It could be something important. As she sat and stared absentmindedly at the box, it began to feel more and more familiar, and it dawned on her that it looked exactly the same as packages her mother used to send out. She began to remove the tape, eager to see the contents, even if they were just something as boring as cat food. At that moment, however, with the tape half hanging off the box, she heard Bubba stirring. She set the package down and went to go check on her grandmother. By the time she had finished her daily routine with Bubba, it was time to go to work.

She put the package on a bookshelf in the hallway, and resolved to open it when she got home, not thinking about the strange nature of bookshelves, and their ability to keep things just beyond the veil of consciousness. Things put on the bookshelf tend to stay there until the user decides to actively peruse the shelves once again. Only then, as it appears before their eyes, do they remember the object they placed there so long ago.