Here is a Box

Sometimes, it all waits there.

You see the box, just an ordinary cardboard box, no different to any of the thousands of other boxes you have ever seen, sitting on an ordinary table. There is nothing special about the table, or – for that matter – anything very remarkable about the room containing the table.

It seems so ordinary, so commonplace.

And yet….

This is my box, and I have brought it here for you to open. You have been here before and you have seen this box opened and its contents spilled out across these pages. You know that today this box could contain worlds you have never seen before, places you have never known, creatures you have never seen. You know too, though that it can contain mountains, rivers, valleys and all the seasons of the year. It can contain dark words where strange creatures wait for the unwary to pass by. It can contain bright summer valleys where gentle rivers flow and the days pass like butterflies.

You know too that she is bound to be there, dressed - or not – in whatever I have chosen for her; there waiting patiently for a story I have promised her will soon begin.