The Little Things

what would the story be behind a book that starts and ends with the line “Today was a perfect day, and everything was how it should be.”?  However, the line has a different meaning from the beginning to the end

Me: You know what, I’m going to get my life together!  I’m going to get past my anxiety and start a conversation with someone and make some friends!

Me: *Steps outside*

Neighbor: *Glances up at me*

Me: *Waves awkwardly*

Neighbor: *Doesn’t acknowledge it*

So every year, my family has a little party to take the Christmas tree down, to make it more of a celebration rather than something sad.  We make pizza and listen to Christmas music and we all take the tree down together.

This year, my mother received some really nice pinecone candles from a friend.  While pine cones are usually explosive when they come in contact with fire, the wax coating these pine cones had a chemical that made sure they didn’t blow up.  We read the instructions that told us to light the tip of the pinecone once it was placed on a heat-resistant plate, and the fire would go down it slowly and make the room smell like a forest.  Nice enough, right?

So my brother lights a match, lights the pinecone, and we all go back to talking and taking the ornaments off the tree.  Soon, we start to smell the pine smell, and turn around to see the entire top half of the pine cone on fire.  It was slightly unnerving, since the instructions said small fire, but we figured that this must have been what they meant.

A couple of minutes passed and the entire pinecone is engulfed in flames.  We are all sitting around it, starting to panic because it looks like it’s going to go through the coffee table before it finally stops.  My mom runs out of the room to grab a pot to snuff the flame, and my dad tells my brother to try and blow it out (keep in mind I’m sitting behind the candle, across from my brother).  And my brother blows on the pinecone to try and put it out.

Everything is ablaze.

The table is en fuego, the napkins are smoking, the carpet is smoldering, my lap is covered in burning embers, as are the plates.  Chaos ensues, with my dad running upstairs to find a spray bottle, my brother trying to stamp out the carpet and douse the napkins in water, and I’m trying to put myself out (I got it out eventually).  My mother comes running back in with a metal pot and slams it over the pinecone, and my dad comes back down holding a spray bottle.  After a few seconds, my mother lifts the pot to reveal that the fire has been snuffed out, and my dad sprays it a few times to make sure it doesn’t reignite.

My parents love this café a few towns over and had gone a few times before inviting me (before the quarantine).  I’ll admit the drinks were very good, but as we were leaving, I noticed a really small bookshop right next door.  I adore bookshops, so my parents continued walking around town while I went in.

There was a little old lady behind the desk, who looked up at me when I entered.  She told me that there were a few sales going on and to ask for help if I needed it.  Most of the books were really old, and there were a few really interesting sections, like books for learning languages and old fairy tales.  There was even a section dedicated to plant books.

However, as I moved to the back of the shop, I heard some noises coming from behind a book shelf (I was out of view from the old lady btw).  The shelf wasn’t pressed up against the wall, but instead was maybe half a foot away from it.  It was hard to see though and wouldn’t be really noticeable unless you looked closely.

I looked closer at the wall, and saw that it wasn’t even a wall, but a secret door.  There was a small handle, so I opened the door a crack, and saw that it led into the kitchen of the café next door.

Suddenly the little old lady is right next to me, and honestly, I didn’t hear her walk up to me and just about jumped out of my skin.  At first I thought she was going to yell at me or something, but she just looked through the door and smiled at me.

“Almost no one notices that door.  Sometimes, I like to use it to get my coffee in the morning.  Makes me feel like a secret agent.”  She gave me another smile, and then walked to another shelf to organize some books.

I closed the door, and stood there for another minute, processing what just happened.  I made sure to buy some books (A really old book on mosses and a book on German fairytales), thanked her, and left.  She told me to come back anytime and to have a good rest of my day.

So I was talking with my dad, and we noticed that there are little magical items that exist in the world today.  One of them is hockey pucks.  

My dad owns about 20-25 of these things, and has played hockey for years.  He has never bought one.  Not one.  They just kinda appear and he uses them, and that’s it.  I recently found two of them, and took them home with me.  My mom threw them out, thinking that we weren’t going to use them, and when I was out on a walk, I found them in the street.  They were beat up, and had some mud stains on them, so I knew they were the ones I’d found.

I noticed a similar pattern with guitar picks and glitter.  They just randomly show up, and you aren’t entirely sure of where they came from, but most of the time they’re useful, so you keep them.