Box of Souls

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the words: Dance, Box and Stripes

Box of Souls

When he first saw her dance, he fell in love; but that was long ago.

He, a Janissary, savaging his way through the killing fields of pre-industrial Turkey.

She, a gypsy, dancing amid the ruins of the village square.

Each had a small box hanging from their hips.

Her movements had been mesmerizing; causing the most brutal of raiders to stare.

They wept at the sight of her swirling faster and faster amongst a tornado of veils. Each man saw something emerge from the blur of motion – a lost love blowing a soft kiss; a drunken wench offering seduction from a bottle; a siren, seducing one towards an unseen rocky shore . . .

In her, they saw their deepest desires and fears rolled into one whirling force of infinite seduction.


They awoke the next morning uncertain of how the night had ended. None spoke of the event nor of the emptiness that each of them felt; an emptiness of guilt that each carried silently as their own secret albatross.

He alone remembered everything, including the box. He was not like them. He was not like anyone, or so he thought. After seeing her, he realized that he was not unique in this world. He was not the only immortal.

Centuries passed. He saw her at Damascus during the Second Crusades and then again on the beaches of Normandy. They sought out conflict since embattled souls were easier to harvest.

They finally met at a quiet oasis in the wastelands of Afghanistan.

“We need to stop the carnage,” he began.

“A tiger cannot change its stripes,” she whispered.

In a single quick motion, he snatched her box and opened it to the sky.

“But one can cease being a tiger,” he said, opening his box as well.

Word count 300