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<font size="5">This Box Contains a Quantity of Hydrocyanic Acid that May or May Not Be Released By the Potential Decay of a Small Amount of a Radioactive Substance.<br>Also, There is a Cat in the Box.<br>(A Choose Your Own Adventure Story.)</br></font>
Story by James Brubaker<br>Adapted for the Web by Dillon Hawkins<br>Illustrations by Jamie Pierson</br>
<img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/boxajar.jpg" style="width:325px;height:325px;">
[[Play the Story->1]]
[[About the Artists->About]]
<font size="2">©2018</font>
</center></div>(if: (history:) contains "17")[<div id="wrapper">
<img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/boxwithlid.jpg" style="width:325px;height:325px;" align="right">
You have been selected to participate in an experiment. You arrive at a laboratory and are guided to a room. Inside the room there is a box with a note attached to it. The note says: “This box contains a quantity of hydrocyanic acid that may or may not have been released already by the decay of a small amount of a radioactive substance. Also, there is a cat in the box. If this hasn’t yet happened, when the radioactive substance does decay, a mechanism within the box will release the hydrocyanic acid, thus killing the cat. If you choose to open the box, the cat will be either alive or dead, but not both.”
//[[Open the box to find the cat alive.->Unlocked]]//
//[[Open the box to find the cat dead.->Unlocked]]//
//[[Do not open the box.->4]]//</div>](else:)[<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/boxwithlid.jpg" style="width:325px;height:325px;" align="right">
You have been selected to participate in an experiment. You arrive at a laboratory and are guided to a room. Inside the room there is a box with a note attached to it. The note says: “This box contains a quantity of hydrocyanic acid that may or may not have been released already by the decay of a small amount of a radioactive substance. Also, there is a cat in the box. If this hasn’t yet happened, when the radioactive substance does decay, a mechanism within the box will release the hydrocyanic acid, thus killing the cat. If you choose to open the box, the cat will be either alive or dead, but not both.”
//[[Open the box to find the cat alive.->2]]//
//[[Open the box to find the cat dead.->3]]//
//[[Do not open the box.->4]]//</div>]
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/catinbox.jpg" style="width:400px;height:400px;" align="right">
You open the box and the cat is alive, sleeping, curled into a ball with one paw wrapped over its eyes like a child. The cat is gray with black stripes.
//[[Leave the cat in the box.->5]]//
//[[Pick up the cat and hold it in your arms.->6]]//</div>
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/catinbox.jpg" style="width:400px;height:400px;" align="right">
You open the box and the cat is dead. The cat is gray with black stripes. You detect the faint scent of almonds because hydrocyanic acid smells like almonds.
//[[You feel bad for the cat.->7]]//
//[[You feel indifferent to the cat's demise.->8]]//<div>
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/hospital.jpg" align="right">
You forget about the cat and the box. You go to see your father, who is in the hospital for something having to do with his heart. Your father’s heartbeat has become irregular and doctors are worried that he could die. The doctors have cut your father open and put electronic monitoring devices into his heart, but they still want to keep him in the hospital just in case anything goes wrong. Generally, it is not a good sign when doctors want to keep a person in the hospital just in case anything goes wrong. You stand outside the door to your father’s room. There is no note attached to the door about hydrocyanic acid and a radioactive substance, yet you can’t help but think about the cat and the box, that the cat could be either alive or dead, that you could either open the box and find out or not, in which case the cat would be either alive or dead forever. Then you think about your father, how he always looked ridiculous in baseball caps, or about the time he asked you to order pizza at a local tavern because your mother had said he shouldn’t eat pizza, because of his heart, but he knew he could eat a piece of yours, and so you ordered pizza. You wonder if that pizza is the reason your father is in the hospital. You aren’t sure you want to open the door, and the longer you grapple with the decision the more you question whether you did the right thing regarding the cat and the box.
//[[Go back to the cat in the box.->9]]//
//[[Open the door to see your father.->14]]//</div>
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You leave the cat in the box and go to see your father, who is in the hospital for something having to do with his heart. You are glad the cat was alive when you opened the box and hope that it wakes up and walks away from the box before the radioactive substance decays. As you drive down the interstate in your sports car, which is only a Dodge Challenger, silver with three black stripes down each side, you start to question whether you did the right thing regarding the cat and the box: first, to leave the cat behind, asleep in that lethal box, and second—and this was not an explicit decision, but something you’re realizing only now—to leave the cat in the possession of the diabolical minds that put it in the box to begin with.
//[[Go back to retrieve the cat.->13]]//
//[[Continue to the hosptial.->15]]//</div><div id="wrapper">
You pick up the cat and hold it in your arms. It purrs and makes a high-pitched sound not unlike the tribbles in that episode of //Star Trek// you and your father used to watch every time it was rerun. You don’t really mean “used to”; it’s not like your father is dead, he’s only in the hospital. You and your father can still watch the episode, which reminds you that you wanted to visit him, but now here’s this cat for which you feel responsible. You saved its life, after all. You go to the store and buy a litter box and litter and food bowls and food and a toy that looks like a mouse and another toy that is a string with pink feathers on it. You want to take the cat home, but also you want to visit your father.
//[[Go back to the hospital to visit your father.->10]]//
//[[Take the cat home and visit your father later.->11]]//</div><div id="wrapper">
You go to the hospital to visit your father, who is happy to see you. He waves you into the room because an episode of //Star Trek//, “The Trouble with Tribbles,” is just starting—a happy coincidence. You and your father watch the episode and laugh at the funny parts. During the final act, you cheer when the tribbles expose the villain. You tell your father about your new cat, and the box, and how you were afraid to open the door to his room because you thought he might have been dead, just like the cat might have been dead inside the box, even though it wasn’t. You tell him, “You are old and your heart is weak and you have machines inside you and I am worried that you will die.” Your father says, “It’s only natural,” and you’re not sure if he’s talking about your feelings or the fact that he will die. As the episode ends, you tell your father that you have to go because the cat is in the car and it is a hot day. You hug your father and tell him to be well. You tell him you’ll visit him again before he is discharged. When you find your Dodge Challenger in the parking lot the cat is dead.<img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/penislake.jpg" style="width:347px;height:450px;" align="right"> The heat was too much. You shouldn’t have watched all of “The Trouble with Tribbles.” You go back into the hospital and tell your father about the cat. You tell him you don’t know what to do. Your father suggests a Viking funeral, maybe at the lake by the old house. You suspect he suggests this because he wants a Viking funeral for himself when he dies, and because he thinks the lake by the old house is funny as—when viewed via Google Earth—it looks like a penis. You kiss your father on his bald head though it seems strange for one grown man to kiss another grown man on his bald head, even if they are father and son. You tell him you’re going to give the cat a Viking funeral.
//[[Continue.->17]]//</div>
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You take the cat home and leave it in your car while you set up the litter box. Once it’s placed and filled, you retrieve the cat and put it directly inside. You do this because you’ve heard that cats are more likely to use the litter box if it’s the first place they’re deposited in a new environment. You name the cat Neko, which is Japanese for //cat//. As Neko settles in, you visit your father at the hospital. You tell him all about your new cat and the way she sometimes makes sounds like a tribble from //Star Trek//. At home, the cat does cute things. She hops on the kitchen counter, then atop the refrigerator, where she bats at your head when you walk by. She also likes laundry baskets—she climbs inside and you carry her around.
She still has claws, so you let her go outside when she wants. Because Neko is a cat and she loves you—sometimes you wonder if she knows you saved her life—she gives you dead animals as presents: voles and mice and other small, furry things left on your front porch. One time, she leaves a fully grown rabbit. You think of all the animals that would still be alive had you never opened the box, as you drop the dead rabbit into the garbage can behind your building. Another time, when you’re leaving your apartment, she approaches with a bird in her mouth. She looks proud. She opens her mouth to say, “Meow,” and the bird flies out and up toward the sky. You marvel at the bird’s audacity. It flies a loping arc across the sky, then sags and sputters—apparently from some unseen wound inflicted by your cat—but maintains its general altitude. That bird, so cunning and resilient, would never have ended up in a box with a radioactive substance and hydrocyanic acid. You hope that if you are like an animal you’re like that bird and not your own cat. Later, you realize that probably both are still alive only because of dumb luck.
Years pass. You marry a woman named Amy. The two of you don’t have children. Amy has short, brown hair and a long, slender face, and she is a travel agent who also teaches courses at the local community college about how to be a travel agent. You and Amy treat Neko like a child even though the cat is now almost ten. Eventually, your father’s heart stops, but he lived a long life and you were expecting it and he was expecting it and dying is just something that happens. Afterward, you watch his video will; after making several jokes about wanting a Viking funeral, your father asks to be cremated, to have his remains scattered at the lake by the old house where you grew up. “I know it’s been a while,” he says. “Look it up on Google Earth.” You watch his bald head on the television screen and feel sad that you cannot kiss it, though that might be a little bit strange. Back at home, because your father told you to, you look up the lake on Google Earth, and it is shaped like a penis. You laugh. You take your father’s ashes to the lake and scatter them around the shoreline, outlining the penis. Your father would have found this funny.
<img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/cat.jpg" style="width:425px;height:348px;" align="right">A few years later, Neko disappears. She wasn’t going outside anymore so you and Amy look everywhere inside, and you find Neko dead, behind the couch, alone. You tell Amy that you’re going to give Neko a Viking funeral in honor of your father. As you put her body in a bag and the bag in the car, you feel glad that your cat died alone and with dignity, not more than a decade back in a box with a radioactive substance and hydrocyanic acid. You think of that bird that got away all those years ago. Even that lucky bird is dead now.
//[[Continue.->17]]//</div>
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/cat.jpg" style="width:300px;height:246px;" align="right">
You go back to the cat and the box. You speed, wondering if your initial reluctance to take the cat from the laboratory might have resulted in the cat’s death. If the cat is still in the box it could be dead. You park on the front curb, sprint through the lab’s cracked-glass front doors, and ask the first person you see, a small balding man in a white coat, “Which direction is the cat and the box?” The man guides you to the room. You’re nervous as you enter. The cat is curled in a ball on the floor.
//[[The cat is alive.->6]]//
//[[The cat is dead.->8]]//</div>
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/hospital.jpg" align="right">
You forget about the cat and the box. You go to see your father, who is in the hospital for something having to do with his heart. Your father’s heartbeat has become irregular and doctors are worried that he could die. The doctors have cut your father open and put electronic monitoring devices into his heart, but they still want to keep him in the hospital just in case anything goes wrong. Generally, it is not a good sign when doctors want to keep a person in the hospital just in case anything goes wrong. You stand outside the door to your father’s room and imagine opening the door to find him dead, or perhaps to find him alive. You imagine not opening the door so that he could be both, forever. You think of him in the past tense, remembering the Hard Rock Cafe shirts he always wore, from all over the world, and that time he asked you to order pizza at a local tavern because your mother had said he shouldn’t eat pizza, because of his heart, but he knew he could eat a piece of yours, and so you ordered pizza, even though you didn’t want it. You wonder if that pizza is the reason your father is in the hospital. You aren’t sure you want to open the door, and the longer you grapple with the decision the more you question whether you did the right thing regarding the cat and the box.
//[[Go back to the cat and the box.->13]]//
//[[Open the door to see your father.->14]]//</div>
<div id="wrapper">
You admire the cat’s soft coat, the way its paw curls over its face, like a child sleeping. You know that nothing you could have done, short of never opening the box, might have changed this outcome. If you’d never opened the box, you would never have known if the cat was alive or dead, thus the cat could have been either alive or dead, forever. Obviously, eventually, the cat would have died because cats die, but as long as the box remained closed, the possibility of a living cat existed. You wonder if maybe, had you opened the box more quickly, you might have saved the cat. You then concede that such a consideration is foolish because the only choice you were given was whether or not to open the box; you were given choices, but they were not the right ones. You feel angry about this format. You feel angry that you were not given the choice to put perfume in the box instead of hydrocyanic acid, that you weren’t allowed to decide not to place the cat in the box at all. These are the machinations of the story and they cannot be undone. Your best course of action, now, is to carry on with your life as it was before you encountered the cat. You remember that you were going to visit your father in the hospital and this is what you want to do, now; still, you feel bad and think that maybe you should dispose of the cat’s body in a respectful way.
//[[Forget about the cat, because it was just a cat, after all, and visit your father in the hospital.->8]]//
//[[Give the dead cat an honorable send-off.->17]]//</div>
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It was just a lousy animal. The world will be neither better nor worse short one cat. You go to the hospital to visit your father. Outside his room you think about the cat again and feel anxious, but then you open the door and your father is alive. Even better, he’s happy to see you, because an episode of //Star Trek//, “The Trouble with Tribbles,” is just starting. You and your father watch the episode and laugh at the funny parts. Still, despite your laughter, you’re sad about abandoning the dead cat. On the television, Captain Kirk is about to open a hatch and be covered in tribbles—you think that, in this moment, the tribbles inside could be either alive or dead, even though you’ve seen this episode a thousand times and you know they’re dead. You tell your father about the cat, and the box, and how you were worried about opening the door to his room because you thought he might have been dead, just like the cat. You tell him, “You are old and your heart is weak and you have machines inside you and I am worried that you will die.” Your father says, “It’s only natural,” and you’re not sure if he’s talking about your feelings or the fact that he will die. As the episode ends, you remember how your father would tape satellite feeds of //Star Trek: The Next Generation// for you a week before they aired, even though he never liked that version. <img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/baldhead.jpg" style="width:450px;height:500px;" align="right"> He asks what you’re going to do for the cat. You tell him you don’t know, and he suggests a Viking funeral, maybe at the lake by the old house. You suspect he suggests this because he wants a Viking funeral for himself when he dies, and because he thinks the lake by the old house is funny as—when viewed via Google Earth—it looks like a penis. You kiss your father on his bald head though it seems strange for one grown man to kiss another grown man on his bald head, even if they are father and son. You tell him you’re going to give the cat a Viking funeral.
//[[Continue.->17]]//
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/boxwithlid.jpg" style="width:400px;height:400px" align="right">
You go back to the cat and the box. You speed, wondering if your initial reluctance to open the box might have resulted in the cat’s death. If the cat is dead when you arrive, you’ll never know if it was dead during your previous visit or if it died in the time it took you to return. You park on the front curb, sprint through the laboratory’s cracked-glass front doors, and ask the first person you see, a small balding man in a white coat, “Which direction is the cat and the box?” The man points down a hallway to your left. All the doors lining the hallway look the same, and you open each one. Behind the first you see a woman breast-feeding a child who must be at least six years old, unless he’s some sort of genetic mutant who ages really quickly. This is a laboratory, after all. In another room there’s a dog with scales like a lizard’s. You suspect this might be the result of a different box, and then you consider for a moment that perhaps there isn’t any cat at all—that perhaps the whole ordeal is a ruse. Are you doing this for nothing? Still, you open the next door and there, at last, is the box, the note, the alleged cat. You enter the room and feel anxious about what you’ll find when you open the box.
//[[Open the box to find the cat dead.->3]]//
//[[Do not open the box.->12]]//
//[[Open the box to find the cat alive.->16]]//</div>
<div id="wrapper">
Your father is happy to see you. He waves you into the room because an episode of //Star Trek//, “The Trouble with Tribbles,” is starting—a happy coincidence. You and your father watch the episode and laugh at the funny parts; you cheer when the tribbles expose the villain in the final act. You tell your father about the cat and the box, and how you were afraid to open the door to his room because you thought he might have been dead. You tell him, “You are old and your heart is weak and you have machines inside you and I am worried that you will die.” Your father says, “It’s only natural,” and you’re not sure if he’s talking about your feelings or the fact that he will die. As the episode ends, you tell your father that you have to go because you feel bad for leaving the cat with the box. “What should I do if the cat is dead?” you ask. Your father suggests a Viking funeral, maybe at the lake by the old house. You suspect he suggests this because he wants a Viking funeral when he dies, and also because he thinks the lake by the old house is funny as—when viewed via Google Earth—it looks like a penis.<img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/cat.jpg" style="width:400px;height:327px;" align="right"> You kiss your father on his bald head though it seems strange for one grown man to kiss another grown man on his bald head, even if they are father and son. You tell him you’ll give the cat a Viking funeral if it is dead. When you arrive at the laboratory you ask a scientist in a white coat for help and he takes you to the room with the cat and the box. You’re nervous as you enter. The cat is curled in a ball on the floor.
//[[The cat is alive.->11]]//
//[[The cat is dead.->17]]//</div>
(if: (history:) contains "Unlocked")[<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/justsripplesmoke.jpg" style="width:480px;height:440px;" align="right">
You take the cat to the lake, the one by the house where you grew up. You set the cat in a box—not the box, but another one, a regular box—and you set the box in the water. Then you light it on fire. You kick it softly toward the lake’s center. You are fairly certain that Viking funerals weren’t really like this, that this type of ceremony is more an invention of films and television, but you know, too, that this will make your father happy. Unlike in those movies, the box with the cat in it doesn’t float. It sinks and the lake water extinguishes the fire, but that’s OK. You did your best. With or without fire, either way, the cat is gone.
//[[Read again?->Reroute 1]]//</div>](else:)[<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/justsripplesmoke.jpg" style="width:480px;height:440px;" align="right">
You take the cat to the lake, the one by the house where you grew up. You set the cat in a box—not the box, but another one, a regular box—and you set the box in the water. Then you light it on fire. You kick it softly toward the lake’s center. You are fairly certain that Viking funerals weren’t really like this, that this type of ceremony is more an invention of films and television, but you know, too, that this will make your father happy. Unlike in those movies, the box with the cat in it doesn’t float. It sinks and the lake water extinguishes the fire, but that’s OK. You did your best. With or without fire, either way, the cat is gone.
//[[Read again?->1]]//</div>]
<div id="wrapper">
You approach the box, crouch before it, reread the attached note. You want to open the box and find the cat alive, but you worry that it will be dead, and because you didn’t open the box before, you might now be implicated. Because you hesitated, because you left and returned, there is an hour during which the cat could have died because of you. Of course, it could have been dead already, before you ever found it, but you’ll never know the truth—thus the cat will always be dead because of you and not because of you. You decide not to open the box. You are insufferable and indecisive and prefer ignorance to responsibility. If you really weren’t going to open the box, why did you even bother turning around? You pick up the box and turn to leave the lab. If the cat is dead, there is nothing you can do for it. If the cat is alive, it will die someday still; so, even in this scenario, there is nothing you can really do. You question whether it’s safe to be carrying a box that may or may not contain a quantity of hydrocyanic acid and a small amount of a radioactive substance. So you find a trash bag and—without looking—you drop the cat inside.
//[[Continue.->17]]//
</div>
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/catinbox.jpg" style="width:400px;height:400px;" align="right">
You open the box and the cat is alive, sleeping, curled into a ball with one paw wrapped over its eyes like a child. The cat is gray with black stripes. You pick up the cat and hold it in your arms. It purrs and makes a high-pitched sound not unlike the tribbles in that episode of //Star Trek// you and your father used to watch every time it was rerun. You don’t really mean “used to”; it’s not like your father is dead, he’s only in the hospital. You and your father can still watch the episode, which reminds you that you wanted to visit him, but now here’s this cat for which you feel responsible. You saved its life, after all. You go to the store and buy a litter box and litter and food bowls and food and a toy that looks like a mouse and another toy that is a string with pink feathers on it. You want to take the cat home, but also you want to visit your father.
//[[Go to the hospital to visit your father.->10]]//
//[[Take the cat home and visit your father later.->11]]//</div>
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/catinbox.jpg" style="width:350px;height:350px;" align="left">
You open the box and the cat is both alive and dead. This does not mean that the cat is a ghost or a ghoul. This means only that the cat is both alive and dead. This is not possible. People and animals can be only alive //or// dead, not both. You are confused, because this is also a violation of the concept of quantum mechanics, which dictates that the radioactive substance in the box must have either decayed //or// not decayed, meaning that the hydrocyanic acid must necessarily have been either released //or// not released, meaning that the cat must be either alive //or// dead. The idea that radioactive substance can both decay //and// not decay, that the hydrocyanic acid can be both released //and// not released is absurd; but there, in the box, is the proof—the fucking cat is both alive and dead. And just as the cat being both alive and dead is a violation of quantum mechanics, you are beginning to realize that this section of this story is a violation of the story’s own form. Ask yourself: how did you get to this section? None of the other sections ends with the option, //Open the box and find that the cat is actually both alive and dead.// That’s fucked. Still, you are reading this section, so you have opened the box and found that the cat is both alive and dead. What do you do with a cat that is both alive and dead? Do you take it to your apartment and care for it like you might a cat that is alive? Or do you take it to a lake and set it on fire the way you might a cat that is dead? And perhaps there is a third option: you could wait. The dead part of the cat will always be dead, but the not-dead part will not always be not-dead. There are no circumstances in quantum mechanics that allow for a living thing to never die. Eventually, the not-dead part will stop functioning, just like someday you will stop functioning, and the entire cat will be only dead. Until then, take the cat to your apartment and let it exist in an out-of-the-way room you never use, thus saving yourself from any awkward confrontations with the unfathomable duality of the alive/dead cat. And when the cat is no longer half dead, but rather fully dead, you will take it to the lake, the one by the house where you grew up, the lake that—when viewed via Google Earth—looks like a penis, or so your father says. You will set the cat in a box and you will set the box in the water. Then you will light it on fire.<img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/justsripplesmoke.jpg" style="width:480px;height:440px;" align="right"> You will kick it softly toward the lake’s center. You will be fairly certain that Viking funerals weren’t really like this, that this type of ceremony is more an invention of films and television, but you’ll know, too, that this will make your father happy. Unlike in those movies, the box with the cat in it will not float. It will sink and the lake water will extinguish the fire, but that’s OK. You will have done your best. With or without fire, either way, the cat will be gone.
//[[Read again?->Reroute 1]]//</div>
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/boxwithlid.jpg" style="width:325px;height:325px;" align="right">
You have been selected to participate in an experiment. You arrive at a laboratory and are guided to a room. Inside the room there is a box with a note attached to it. The note says: “This box contains a quantity of hydrocyanic acid that may or may not have been released already by the decay of a small amount of a radioactive substance. Also, there is a cat in the box. If this hasn’t yet happened, when the radioactive substance does decay, a mechanism within the box will release the hydrocyanic acid, thus killing the cat. If you choose to open the box, the cat will be either alive or dead, but not both.”
//[[Open the box to find the cat alive.->2]]//
//[[Open the box to find the cat dead.->3]]//
//[[Do not open the box.->4]]//</div>
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<font size="8">About the Artists</font></center>
<img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/brubaker-watercolor.jpeg" style="width:280px;height:327px" align="left"><b>JAMES BRUBAKER</b> is the author of //Liner Notes// (Subito Press) and //Pilot Season// (Sunnyoutside). This story with a very long title is from his forthcoming book //Black Magic Death Sphere: (Science) Fictions//, available through <a href="http://www.urbanfarmhousepress.com/kilgoretroutseries.html?route=product/product&product_id=76." target="_blank">Urban Farmhouse Press</a>. His short stories have appeared in //Zoetrope: All Story//, //Hobart//, //Michigan Quarterly Review//, //Monkeybicycle//, //Beloit Fiction Journal//, and //The Normal School//, among other venues, and is a frequent contributor to <a href="http://www.thers500.com/." target="_blank">//The RS500//</a>. He is the editor/publisher for //Southeast Missouri State University Press// and the journal //Big Muddy//. Find out more at <a href="https://jamesbrubaker.net." target="_blank">jamesbrubaker.net</a>.
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/hawkins-watercolor.jpeg" style="width:270px;height:326px" align="right">
<b>DILLON HAWKINS</b> is a fledgling scholar of film history and literature. He occassionally writes, too. Some of his short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in //The RS500//. Dillon is currently creating a venue for digital fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry called Codex Arcade, with James Brubaker's "This Box Contains..." being the first entry. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his dog, Boo Radley.
<div id="wrapper"><img src="https://codexarcade.com/fiction/brubaker/images/pierson-watercolor.jpeg" style="width:280px;height:324px" align="left">
<b>JAMIE PIERSON</b> is an illustrator and maker, but her day job is driving the bookmobile for the local library, an arguably cooler activity than making art. She is also pursuing a master's degree in Urban Design at the University of Oklahoma. Jamie lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her dog, Dewey.
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↶↷
This Box Contains a Quantity of Hydrocyanic Acid that May or May Not Be Released By the Potential Decay of a Small Amount of a Radioactive Substance.
Also, There is a Cat in the Box.
(A Choose Your Own Adventure Story.)
Story by James Brubaker
Adapted for the Web by Dillon Hawkins
Illustrations by Jamie Pierson
Play the Story
About the Artists
©2018