'For Pandora and co. Then.' by Rosalind Minett

This box, inflammable, unrot-able, will do. It’s metal, embellished with classical figures, kneeling, reaping, fighting, kissing: appropriate for describing a lifetime even if not the one within.

The lid opens nicely; a good fit.

Inside:

one pair rugby socks, school number clearly marked on the tops;

a single rugby boot (muddy);

flyers for gigs of long lost nights (Soundwave? Superslim?);

CDs I must have pilfered along the way but God knows why – Squeeze, Fucking Take That and Party? Who did I nick them off?;

an unopened packet of condoms, (depressing - I remember that weekend);

thirteen photos of Bonzo, one of them shrugged up to a little me, ecstatic;

an unused soapstone chillum;

a couple of busted videos labelled 'party' (did I ever record a party? I don’t recall having a video camera. I surely would);

dog-faced driftwood from Blue Anchor Bay, near Watchet in Somerset;

naff house sign, Happy Daze - ours;

dead snake I found in Malaysia, boxed;

copious amounts of joss sticks;

a pot of tiger balm, not much left;

tin wall plaque featuring large red moped;

an exquisitely wrapped but empty little present (what was it? who was it from?);

a Father Christmas hat, wine-stained;

a wadge of letters in violet ink with circles around every i - hers;

old motor insurance policy, umpteen pages;

wage slips from twenty years ago when I was earning a hell of a lot more than I am now.

Time to shut the box. I guess the mud from the rugby boot could be usefully analysed. I can’t see that, otherwise in a hundred years, the contents of my Lifetime Box will fascinate the twenty second centurions. 

I’ll bury it now.