The Lips of Lovers Shan't Part with Pasts.

She kept the box a secret from the rest of the explorers.

It was lodged in a wooden puzzle bookcase in the office. Despite being overrun with thousands of skaters, explorers and runaways over the past 11 years, it appeared as though nobody had ever looked twice at this unembellished purple velvet box.

They walked on in front of her, oblivious to her thoughts and curiosity regarding this treasure. They were headed towards the graffitied Budda, talking of ways to scale the massive statute. She barely heard their chatter as her hands ran over the edges of this box. There was no opening, which she found odd. What is the purpose of such a velvet brick? It sounded and felt hollow. She put it in her purse for the time being, until she could be sure that she would not be distracted by her friends. It was her find, her discovery, her intrigue.

The manly men, as they were lovingly dubbed by the group, scrambled to the top of the faux mountains, followed by some of the more courageous women. She sat a good distance off, examining the box in detail. It was burned in one corner, as if a careless smoker had left a cigarette burning upon it as he walked away to attend to a mundane task. She pondered this burn, and other minor bits of wear and tear to the sturdy shell.

She then found a sharp piece of metal, which she used to cut the top piece of the box off. She had hoped for a hidden treasure within, but found it empty. She inspected the green silk-paper interior, which revealed nothing of its past to her. She was growing more and more frustrated by the minute, because this box (which was clearly out of place among the vandalized houses and windows) held closely its past and secrets.

At the peak of her annoyance, she hurled the box towards the murky, algae covered pond in front of Budda. Only one of her friends at the top saw her reaction, and merely chalked it up to meaningless destruction: the theme of the day.

So the box drifted to the bottom of the moat, never to be seen again by human eyes. It was quite successful at containing the secret of its journey to this theme park land. It would never utter the story of the cigars it housed in Thailand, or the money it stored during the travels across the Pacific. It would keep tight the political and social discussions it overheard over many a bottle of Chivas in the home of the Californian sailor, and the tale of the thrift shop in which it sat for 3 years and 2 months. It refused to part with the memory of a British businessman, who for his Asian wife, purchased this newly sacred box as a gift. His gift to her contained 2 commemorative tickets to the opening of his life's dedication: a tribute to her culture and his love for her, Splendid China.

It never once spoke of the simple love it contained for many years, or the vast betrayal it detected that forced the park (and her heart) into closure.

The box, at the bottom of the pond, decayed as easily and quickly as the love it purportedly housed. 

Sham.