I pulled out the scraped shoe box, stained with memories. I uncovered it from the deepest recesses of my closet, underneath the unwanted stuffed animals that I deemed myself too old for, but not yet old enough to abandon. Like an archeologist in an Egyptian tomb, I avoided the booby traps of unstable board games piled high in abrupt and unstable angles. A breath could topple them over, but they were determined to reach towards the ceiling perhaps to escape someday. I did not move them or try to organize their madness; I understood their dream of freedom. I myself was to become a fairy someday.
The unpainted plaster walls, hidden from the eye, revealed themselves in timid strips. I knew those walls very well; my hands could recognize their rough grain and uneven surfaces. Those walls were friends; they were a little shy, that’s all. They preferred to hide behind the mountain of treasures camouflaged as useless trinkets. However, they too wanted to illuminate the closet with the colors and magic of wonder; they too wanted to become a treasure in my eyes. They did not understand that they were in fact the greatest treasure. Their blank surfaces, now a canvas for my imagination, would harbor drawings of unicorns that galloped along the walls. The colors of these masterpieces might have dulled as the pigment in the ink bled out into the paper, but the dreams and the wishes and the memories enclosed in them still glow like the plastic glow-in-the-dark sheep that cover the ceiling.
I caressed the top of that poor old shoe box, whispering apologies for desecrating its existence by banishing it to my personal landfill, also known as that closet. I opened the box, my hands heavy with ceremony. This was no ordinary box, this was my treasure chest. Inside, an assortment of colored bangles glistened, creating a mirage of colors that spread like wild fires throughout the box. Their rich colors gleamed like the stain glass windows of a church I remembered visiting once. I slipped on a couple of bangles and shook my wrist to hear them twinkle like stars. I grinned from ear to ear as my eyes glowed with wonder; I had discovered magic.