Devonne Brown

Who would have thought a six year old would put a curse on a toybox, but he did. Ian wrote “This toybox is cursed” on the lid of a round cheese wheel box in permanent black marker. He’d given warning, especially to his brother Nick, to leave his stuff alone. 

Time is a bootlegged curse. It  steals our youth and youngin’s and carries them off to the land of faraway. Time is a carpetbagger of our dreams. It rides on an airplane and doesn’t look back or go home. 

Time curses us with the future. Every action we commit has an irrevocable effect upon it. We can bend what we become, we put our dreams and hopes in a toybox and hope no one bothers it. 

Time sneaks up on us and leaves us. Anticipation, climax, anticlimax, I should have written a story, but time stole my thoughts today. I had thirty minutes to write a masterpiece that didn’t happen. The cat was on my lap purring, I enjoyed his warm company too long and time got away from me. I lived in that moment instead of my words. 

Who would have thought a six year old would put a curse on a toybox, but he did. Ian wrote “This toybox is cursed” on the lid of a round cheese wheel box in permanent black marker. 

Those words stuck in my mind forever, and have outlived the cheesebox lid by a good twenty years so far. I still see his six year old scribble. That time has passed, but I’ve gone back to that day while the cat purrs on my lap. Time is a bootlegged curse.