I found peace while taped inside a box. Dressed as the protagonist from the 2015 stop-motion film “The Boxtrolls,” I approached the Friday of Halloweekend with a lucid sense of calm. What could go wrong? I expected a successful night out, wearing brown corduroys and a tattered mix of gray and blue fabric as a top. Surrounding my chest was a box, let us say a shoebox, with a picture of an egg on it. Eggs, the character I was in costume as, was human in the Laika-produced movie but rescued as a baby by the cities’ Boxtrolls—misunderstood creatures who live and hide in boxes. They are talented builders, hunted and kidnapped by local exterminators: the Red Hats. Eggs believes he is a Boxtroll, growing up as one of their own, and serves as a catalyst to change others’ minds about the species. This Friday night, I too would spread the kind words of the Boxtrolls and declare the beginning of Halloweekend a success.
Reactions to my trollhood were mixed. Two strangers knew who I was without hints. We squealed together in recognition and toasted to the night ahead. Everyone else had a wide range of reactions. Some remembered the movie as a forgotten childhood memory, while others puzzled over the cardboard with dead stares and scattered mutterings. What resulted from these beginning interactions was an interesting census of childhood experiences. There I sat, with Barbie and Remy from “Ratatouille” on a cement stoop, silently dissecting the differences that shaped our early life. I would go to bed hours later thinking about the same memories.
I came to learn that a wise part of any costume—that is not a character from “Scooby-Doo” or “Alvin and the Chipmunks”—is the usefulness of setting your wallpaper as the thing you are dressed as. Words tend to fail you when stumbling around late at night. Whipping your cracked iPhone out, even when it is on the verge of dying, saves the Halloween-goer precious moments. Let the pixels speak for you. You must save whatever energy you can for the walk home when the embarrassment, drudgery and chafing from the hours before demand the most from your motor functions. I can reflect on this choice because I, in fact, did not change my lock screen that night.
What did I bring up to people when preaching the gospel of the Boxtroll? I could have shared memories of my friend’s beige-colored basement where after our long days in the sixth grade, we made stop-motion Lego films. We would sink onto his parents’ leather couch, exhausted, after hours of making the tiniest of movements to a Chewbacca arm or Batman leg. This friend and I would grow apart by grade nine (creative differences), and our iMovies were lost to time. But the Boxtroll brought out the passion forged in those grueling hours.
I, so far as I remember, did not bring these memories up to random people on campus lawns. Instead, someone dressed as a bunny or cat would ask, “What are you?” in an elongated drawl. I would smile and shout, “I’m a Boxtroll!” and then give a hearty spin. Nice people would inquire further, but the nicest just smiled like they were looking at a puppy on the street.
At one point in the night, after being released from a conversation with someone in Lederhosen, Remy from “Ratatouille,” Barbie and I spotted heaven. Street Eats shrouded the cul-de-sac with a holy light. The promise of chicken nuggets lifted our weary bodies up off the pavement. We began to float, my box carrying me up. I made eye contact with the red of the truck’s side, and, like a seagull, let out a guttural honk. Our squadron flew, birds on a whipping breeze, landing awkwardly at the line’s end. We all became one. We hugged. We waited patiently, not even 10 minutes, smiles drawn wide as we tapped our cards. And then we feasted.
Bellies full, I felt the edges of my box stretch to make room for the loot. We migrated around the now-crowded scene, doing a little boogie here and a little jig there. Our night dripped on like a leaky faucet. We commiserated with King Henry and Anne Boleyn, bowed to a few Avatars and found solace in the arms of angels. I introduced myself to everyone who passed, despite having to be taped back together by Remy.
Before making our last lap at the Town Houses, I had one final objective: find Barbie’s Ken. He was nowhere to be seen. Arm in arm with the Mattel staple, we made a wide loop, weaving in and out of kissing couples and people deep in conversation, to find her counterpart. “Stop, I see him!” standing deep in a sports team’s circle. Troll and doll broke out into a sprint, finishing our loop right where we had started.
When they united, I slunk away, finding rest under an evergreen. There I sat, hopelessly square-shaped, watching the beauty of the campus scene before me. This is where I found peace—watching unhinged passersby throw up in the bushes around me. The night had gone swimmingly, a blur that ended where it began, with me tackling myself out of the box on the floor of my single.