Little Girl Lost

I smile to myself as I open the little pink box with the lavender, heart-shaped clasp. I see my reflection in the mirror on the inside of the lid, the face wider, hair longer, eyes harder than the last time I opened it.

I take a deep breath and reach a hand into the chest, pulling out a misty, liquid-filled orb. The contents are dark. I shake it just a little, streaks of yellow and blue and green swirl within the murky blackness, only to retreat once I still my hand.

"Ah," I say to myself, "My sense of wonder." The grind of adulthood turned a beautiful brook into a tar-filled ravine.

I place the orb next to me and return my focus to the chest. My fingers close around a key. Once encrusted with precious jewels and hanging from a golden chain, the key was now a deep rust-red, soot and jagged stones lying in place of polished rubies and glittering emeralds.

"My trust." Destroyed by lies and broken promises.

As I turn to put down the key, a photograph in the chest catches my eye and I pick it up. The picture is over 30 years old, brown at the edges and discolored in one corner. It is a very small version of me, two feet tall and wearing a blue and white Minnie Mouse track suit. A woman is kneeling beside me, smiling.

"My mother, as she was." Dementia, slowly invading her brain and replacing the woman she was with the woman who may one day not remember my name.

My smile fades, my eyes brimming with tears.

"That is enough for today."

I return the photograph, the key, and the orb to the chest and close it. I then place the little pink box with the lavender, heart-shaped clasp in a bigger chest, black and nondescript. It locks with a click and I slide it back under my bed, a dusty void.

One day I will restore all the items in the chest to their former glory.

But not today.