It was a promotional box — back-to-school theme. The front had one of those write-and-erase magic slates. The trouble was, it was only March and he couldn’t remember buying it. But there it was in the middle of the kitchen table.

It was part of his morning ritual: coffee and crunchy nut cornflakes. It had been Grace’s favourite cereal, and he’d picked up the habit. Even after she left, it felt reassuring, even though the rest of his day-to-day life had been shaken to the core.

He picked up the box and stared. Surely, he would have remembered buying a box with such a bold promotion on the front. Perhaps Helena, his cleaner, had picked it up for him. The cornflakes always sat on the table; it wasn’t a secret that he liked them.

As he sipped his coffee, he absent-mindedly scribbled on the box: “Helena, did you buy these?”. Then thought nothing more about it.

Later, while expertly faking interest in a spreadsheet of sales figures, he noticed his phone light up. Helena: “Saw your cereal note. No, it wasn’t me. Doing your shopping wasn’t in the job description 😉 You ok?” He wasn’t sure what to reply, so he played it safe: “Ok, I’m fine, just a bit absent-minded, it seems.”

The next morning, it wasn’t until he finished his coffee, and the caffeine kicked in, that he noticed the note. “I’m getting spycams weirdo, what kind of person breaks into a house to leave messages on a cereal box? I’ll be watching”. Confused and unsure what to do he sat starring at, or rather through, the crunchy nut box. He took a deep breath and placed his hands on the table, as if trying to stop a thought in its tracks, then got up and began getting ready for work.

As he began to turn the key in the lock, he stopped. He couldn’t resist, even though arguing with an unknown person who it seemed had left him a box of cereal only to use it to berate him was insane. Still… “It’s my house. I already have an alarm. Grace is this your idea of a joke?”. It’s the only thing that made sense, Grace still had keys. And for the first time in months, he set the alarm as he left.  

A large box of cereal usually lasted two weeks, but a few days later, he found himself peering down at the powdery remains. The whole situation was niggling at him. He had to text Grace: “This is going to sound nuts—no pun intended—but are you coming to my house to eat cereal?”. He held his breath and hit send. The reply didn’t take long: “What? No!”. Then 5 minutes later: “Are you ok?”. As conversations by text had directly contributed to the end of their relationship, and he wasn’t sure if he was ok, he decided not to reply. But he did leave another note on the cereal box: “You’re not Helena, you’re not Grace, but you are coming into my house to eat my cereal and not setting off the alarm or taking anything? Who are you?”.

The next morning, he didn’t need coffee to wake up because the box read “? This is my house. Grace died two weeks ago. Do you get kicks tormenting people?”. He couldn’t sit still, he paced the kitchen, he texted Grace: “Grace are you ok?”. He erased the message on the box once again and wrote “I’m Mark, this is my house I’ve lived here for 18 months, and Grace is fine.”

He couldn’t concentrate. He got up and walked to the work kitchen to make coffee so many times that his leg started uncontrollably bouncing under his desk. At home, he walked round and round the kitchen table until a knock at the door interrupted him.

Grace stood in the doorway. “I was worried,” she said, handing him a paper bag of take-out and walking past him into the house. For the rest of the evening and first thing in the morning when he woke up and saw her lying on her side of the bed again, he didn’t think about the box of cereal.      

End of part one.