Two hours later, when Emmy had exhausted her excuses to avoid opening the box in front of her co-workers, which had the side effect of making her look like an extremely efficient employee, more so than she already was, and with an audience three times the size it would have been had she opened the gift when Lisa had first approached her desk, Emmy finally succumbed to her work mates cajoling. Lisa, Terri, and Sam waited with bated breath as Emmy slowly lifted the lid from the box. As the lid raised, she realized she could once again hear that faint, haunting music from earlier that day. "Which office is playing that music? It's beautiful, but a bit loud if we can hear it all the way in here."
"Music? I don't hear anything." said Lisa, and the other women nodded their heads in agreement.
"Well, I don't know what Sam's excuse is, but maybe you and Teresa need to invest in some hearing aids. You are older, after all."
"Ha. Ha. Very funny little whipper snapper." Teresa, the oldest of the four, replied.
At that moment all four women looked down into the now opened box. Silence, during which Emmy could still hear her haunting melody, followed by a gasp of disappointment from Teresa and laughter from Lisa and Sam as they stared at the object lying in the bottom of box.
Emmy's worst thoughts had come true. There was nothing in the box. And she had opened it up in front of the girls for them to see that. She felt a tear escape.
"What is that supposed to be?" asked Sam
"There's nothing in there!" cried Lisa. "All this built up anticipation and there's nothing in there!"
"I'm sorry, dear." Teresa soothed. In an attempt to make Emmy feel better, "Maybe what ever it was fell out of the box before it got to you."
Something caught Lisa's eye and she picked it up. "Some joke. Here's a piece of sand! If it hadn't caught the light just now, I wouldn't have even seen it. You'd think who ever thought up this stupid prank could come up with something better than a piece of sand." She placed it back in the box and shut the lid. Immediately the music, which had been wafting its way to Emmy so softly in the background, ceased.
Emmy was a little curious now. "Seriously?" her voice cracked. "You guys didn't hear that music? It stopped when you put the lid back on the box."
Sam just looked at her with that pity Emmy had been expecting to see all along. Lisa and Teresa shook their heads. All three women walked away, and went back to their desks.
Emmy picked up the box and lifted the lid a crack. Instantly her head was filled with the eerie refrain. She opened the lid the rest of the way and picked the piece of sand up, then shut the lid again. The music continued. She curiously looked at the piece of sand, rolled it over in her fingers, lifted it closer to her face, and realized it wasn't a piece of sand at all, but a seed. Well, that's just silly. Sand or seed, it's not a damn music box! She put the seed back in the box, closed the lid, and shoved it aside to get more work done. Once again the music stopped...
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