The Bread Box



Down around Fourteenth and Ninth, there’s an alley between a parkade and a small office building. Unlike many downtown alleys, this one is clear of parking and transients.

In fact, there never seems to be anyone in it at all. There’s never a car cutting through to avoid traffic, never any teenagers looking for somewhere quiet. Despite the presence of loading docks and parking spaces, it’s as desolate as downtown can be.

If you walk down this alley in the winter, you’ll smell rotting meat coming from a dumpster and hear sounds emanating from it that sound like rats. But if you look inside the dumpster, you’ll find that it’s empty other than a plain tin bread box. The bread box will, despite being of a kind not manufactured for decades, be in mint condition.

If you open the box, which you should never do under any circumstances, you will discover that it contains your own severed head. Your head will tell you two secrets and a lie, and then expire.