Keepsake

Keepsake

He took from his heart his childish dreams: dreams of being an astronaut, a fire fighter, a superhero (and, occasionally, when in a bad mood, a super villain), a soldier, a knight, an adventurer. He placed them in the small box with the rusty hinge and the reliable latch (that’s why a young boy would place his heat’s dreams in an old box with rusty hinges after all).

His heart emptied of all these childish whims, childhood hopes and ambitions. And the box, filled with these childhood dreams, appeared slightly different. Newer. A buzz of something was in the air that the box did not quite have before.

The boy reached down to his knees and, with a tug, pulled out: scabs for days, running, and tumbling, and tree climbing and jumping. Games of leap frog, tug of war, piggy backs and dodge ball. The bruise he took in a game of footie from that dirty cheat Connor Newton (that bruise had been there for days! Big, green and blotchy. It had ached for more than a week). He took the fall he’d taken down a hill where every bit of him had a bump afterwards. He took the egg and spoon race he had won when he was five, barely making it without losing his egg and splattering yolk and shell all over the grass. All these he took and placed into the box.

The boys knees shook and wobbled, lighter but unbalanced because of it. The box filled some more and seemed almost to vibrate now, delighted to be housing so much fun. The hinges less rusty, the wood no longer worn.

The boy reached a small, boyish hand into his mouth and down his throat. Gagging slightly, he pulled from within him: Every warm meal his mother had ever made him. Slices of delicious birthday cake, one for every year he had been alive minus the year’s he had been too small to have cake. Pizza slices from pizza Friday (which wasn’t every Friday, wasn’t even a Friday from every month, but it was good and very looked forward to by him and his little sister). Ice cream licked and flakes munched through with sauce that dripped down his fingers (Monkey’s blood! Him and his little sister would always scream when their father asked what they wanted on their ice cream) as he walked on the beach with his family. Stolen sweets, coveted and snatched when mother wasn’t looking (greedy boy! you’ll ruin your appetite! She would yell when she caught him with sweet wrappers and chocolate coating his lips). The medicine he was fed when his tummy ached and his throat itched. It always tasted bad, but that was alright because mother would let him have a sweet now, even if it was before dinner. All this, all of these meals and much loved treats, they all went into the box.

The boy’s middle felt hollow and his stomach grumbled, The box however flowed, it’s contents swam around, filling the inside of the box. It looked deliciously inviting and appeasing.

Next, the boy stuck his finger deep in his ear, wriggled it around and pulled out: his day dreams, dreams that got him through boring classes where the teachers voice droned on and on. His dreams he dreamt at night. Good dreams. Dreams of adventures, dreams of dragons, dreams where he is soaring through the sky and dreams where he swims along the bottom of the sea exploring its depths. And bad dreams. Dreams of clowns and witches, spiders, bugs, and lizard men. How his daddy was when he got mad. Bullies who emptied him of his pocket money, prized playing cards and finally his guts. In the dreams they spilled his guts, icky things, lungs, liver and heart, leaving him with his intestines hanging out. These last two dreams were the scariest and by far the most uncomfortably real. Although, the bullies had not yet robbed him of his guts in real life. He hoped they never would. The boy also placed his best games and ideas for adventure and fun into the box. He was the best at games, all the other kids loved him and followed him around because he had the best ideas. They’ll be safe in here. The boy took his curiosity, his courage, things that made him look under the bed to see if monsters really lurked there and occasionally made him take the longer path home just to see what was there. All this the boy placed into the box.

The boy’s head pounded, he felt dizzy and for a moment he couldn’t concentrate. He forgot why he was there in the field, until a few moments later when it came rushing back. The box seemed bigger all of a sudden, not as if it had grown, but as if it has always been that size. As if the box could hold countless things within itself.

Finally, the boy reached within himself, not his waking self, but the self he is within dreams, the self that speaks when he talks to himself inside his head. The boy reached this self, not with his hands but something altogether less tangible but altogether more real. With this reaching the boy pulled from his most real self the first time his mother cradled him as a baby when he was brand new to the world. His most true purpose; the knowledge of the reason he, the boy, was placed on this earth. A reason his waking self did not know yet. The boy pulled the love he had received from the family members he cherished and the love he felt for them in return. The boy pulled out the bond he and his first pet shared (Crufty, a small hairy dog who had followed him wherever he went. He was the first dog, and the bestest of dogs in the boy’s opinion). And all of the tears he had shed when he came home from school one day to his fathers grim face, and was sat down and told he would not see his best friend ever again. The boy pulled all this from his truest self and held it in the air for a moment, a long humming moment, before gently lowering it into the box.

Physically the boy looked no different, but his very deepest, most real self felt as if he had lost a limb. The box was transformed by receiving the most precious of all the things it had been given to hold today. It’s wooden frame no longer appeared to be wood, but to the human eye it appeared the box was now made up from liquid gold. Precious, delicate, glowing and swimming before the eye. The latch to this box had also changed. It was no longer a simple latch, but a lock, sturdy and true, but also as beautiful as the box. Bespoke. Made for the boy. The lock had a key in it. A small, delicate, golden key, winged at its very end.

The boy took the key gently from the lock (for he knew the box was already locked, he had given it everything he had needed to give it). The key hummed with life. With its wings it looked as if it could fly away any second. The boy held the key between finger and thumb and considered it for a long moment. Then he swallowed the key. Placing it in his mouth and feeling it slither down his throat into his belly. A place where he can always reach it. Swallowing the key was not like swallowing a piece of metal. It was like spooning down delicious honey; the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

After swallowing the key the boy gingerly reached down to his box and picked it up gently, with hardly any grip, as if he were holding a bird with an injured wing. The boy took his box and slowly lowered it into the hole it had taken him ages to dig (It had been almost sundown when he had finished). The boy looked at his box, his golden box that had grown in size to holdall of the things that he needed holding onto, and them he started to shovel the soil over it until his box was safe, deep enough in the earth where no one could find it unless they knew it was there and they were searching for it. The earth flat packed, the boy stood there catching his breath, taking in his hard work. Then the boy took his dad’s shovel and ran back to his bike. It was already past his curfew, he did not want to be in more trouble than he already was.

He would remember this place, always, and he would come back when he needed these things he had left in the box in the ground the most. Because he knew, one day, that he would need them again. And the golden box will wait for him, here, in a field under the stars, until the day he returned.