The Matchbox
Once upon a time, there was a magic matchbox, filled with magical matches. But nobody truly believes in magic anymore, so they lad, dusty, abandoned, in an old curio shop in the dustiest part of the city. It was an old fashioned type of store (the whole area was old fashioned), and it had one of those old fashioned bells on its door that rang when a customer entered, as it did the day the story began.
The person who had come in was known as Mr. Rankashish, due to unavoidable circumstances concerning his birth. He was holding his ten year old son by the hand, whose name was Rajan, and this was Mr. Rankashish’s fault, although Rajan really didn’t mind. In fact, Rajan was grateful to his father for not giving him his brother’s name. Ankush, who would be turning 16 in a week.
Now, although Rajan thought his brother’s name was a stupid one, he loved his brother dearly and wanted to get him something really, really cool for his birthday, which is why the child was out shopping with his father. Rajan hadn’t seen anything cool enough until Mr. Rankashish, an antique lover, had dragged him into the store.
The match box had caught Rajan’s eye. As his father looked around, he walked over to the table it was lying on. He picked it up, and then wiped his hand on his shirt to get the dust off his fingers. He looked closely at the box.
It was green. Smooth and green, all over, even at the side, where the match was struck. It didn’t even look like a matchbox, but he knew it was one, because it had the words “Magic Matchbox” written on it in black.
“You like, sir?”
Rajan looked up into the black eyes of a young boy, a few years older than him.
“What does it do?” asked Rajan.
“Grants wishes. You light these matches – “the boy took open the box, opened it, and showed the wooden matches inside, with black heads, “– make wish, it comes true.”
Rajan’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yes sir. But when flame goes out – phoosh – wish also go.”
But Rajan wasn’t listening, he was fishing in his pockets.
“How much?”
Two hundred rupees.”
And, even though it was all Rajan had after saving up for two months, it was gone, and so was the boy, leaving only Rajan and his matchbox behind.
Which is how Ankush ended up with the matchbox on his birthday, which he pretended to be extremely exited over when he heard how much Rajan had spent on it. Inside his head, he reminded himself never to let his brother go shopping alone with his father again.
He was turning the box over in his hands at night, after everyone had gone to sleep. It really was a nice box, he decided, and he was gong to like it. For two hundred rupees, he’d better like it.
Then the lights went out.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, which did nothing to get the lights back. He wasn’t sleepy yet. He opened the matchbox, in the dark, and struck a match on the side before he remembered the side was smooth. Nonetheless, a green flame appeared and lit up the room.
Ankush stared at it. Then, for the heck of it, he said, “I wish the electricity would some back!” At that very moment, the lights came back on. Ankush laughed – what a coincidence! He blew the match out.
And was immediately plunged into darkness again.
“Hey!” he said, obviously learning nothing from his previous encounter with the word. He struck another match, and looked for a candle. “Wish I could find another candle before this match goes out.”
He did, of course, and still found nothing strange about it. It really is true that nobody believes in magic anymore. Except Rajan, obviously. Ankush it the candle, and was placing it on his desk when it fell over when it fell over, immediately plunging him into darkness again.
“Bah!”, he exclaimed, which was not more effective than the word “Hey!” in the slightest.
He picked the candle up, lit it with a third match, set it on his desk and then sat on his bed, illuminated in the bright, green light which Ankush was(finally) beginning to find a little strange.
“I wish I knew why the flame is green.” he said, thoughtfully, and immediately, it came to him that it was a magic matchbox, it really was, and the green flame was a magic flame that really granted wishes, and that Ankush would really forget all that as soon as the candle flame went out. So, using his brains at last, he found a pen and wrote everything down before the flame went out. Fortunately, since the flame was on a candle instead of a match, he was able to complete his task without his flame even flickering. He then blew the candle out, forgot everything, lit a match, read the note, made a rhinoceros appear in his room and then blew out the match very quickly indeed.
And now there was one more person who believed in magic.
What would you wish for, if you had a lot of temporary wishes? Wiser men than Ankush would have wished to see their future, or to eat rare food, just for the experience, or to visit exotic lands or see amazing sights… unfortunately, Ankush wasn’t as wise as the men who were wiser than he was.
And he had just become a 16 year old male.
The next day at school, he sat alone in class(he was usually the first to arrive. That day was no exception, even though he had taken a few extra minutes to hug his brother fiercely) as he lit a candle.
“I wish Tanya Jacobs would fall in love with me.” he wished, because he had become a typical 16 year old male. He then shoved the green flamed candle into his locker to protect the flame from anything that might blow it out. He waited, in the class corner so he could be alone.
It really wasn’t an eternity before she finally came, but it certainly felt like it. She walked in, as beautiful as ever, her face looking a little flushed, her eyes slightly wild, until she turned around and saw him. Ignoring the other few classmates who had come in, she walked slowly, straight to Ankush, whose heart was pounding terribly hard. It pounded dangerously hard as she sat beside him, moving in awfully close. She took his hand and squeezed it tenderly – his heart gave him a break as it stopped pounding and skipped a beat. It skipped another beat. And another beat. By the eight skip, Ankush knew he had to do something to save his life, so he tried to look at her, smiled and gave a weak “Hi.”
He couldn’t believe she was looking at him like that.
“Hey.” she breathed. “I… wanted to – ”
“AAAH! FIRE! ANKUSH, IT’S COMING FROM YOUR LOCKER!” a girl screamed.
“Wha – ” said Ankush, dreamily, getting lost in Tanya’s eyes.
“ANKUSH!”
He turned. He saw the smoke. He swore. He jumped out of his desk, rushing to his locker as he fumbled in his pocket for the keys.
Tanya was thinking, “My Hero…”
As soon as the locker was open, water was thrown inside. It continued till the fire was out, despite Ankush wailing, “Wait! Wait!”
Blinking at the smoke, water and ash that had now been added to his locker, he turned to Tanya, was staring at him like he was some kind of idiot. He had been afraid of that. He still tried one last time, though. “You were going to say something?” he asked, almost desperately.
She even looked beautiful while throwing up.
Ankush tried again several times that day. And the next day. He tried it with some other girls, to avoid doing Tanya major psychological damage. But the flame kept going out each time, and he was helpless to stop it. He used the matchbox three different times to get teachers to feel kind and forgiving towards him, and he ran way before the matches went out. He used it to scare some people he disliked, on eight separate occasions, blowing the match out before the terrifying beast of the day could actually hurt them. In the evenings, he consoled himself over his failure with Tanya by hanging out in his favorite television show.
And then he had an idea.
It took some preparation. He set up stones, and sacrificed a lot of the flooring in his room to arrange them in a circle. He set his candle in the middle of it, closed his windows, and told his parents and the maid not to touch the candle. They agreed, amusedly, what harm could happen?
Ankush lit his candle in the morning. He would come back in the evening, and transfer the flame to another candle. That way he could keep the flame going as long as he wanted it to. He made his wish.
This time, everything worked out great. He came into class and found her waiting for him. She wouldn’t stop kissing him until they heard the teacher was coming. Even then, she wouldn’t leave his side, she went with him wherever he went, her hand held his whenever the teacher wasn’t looking, she wrote him endless notes, and from time to time, she stole a daring kiss. Ankush was so blissful he couldn’t even think… until lunchtime came along
She was feeding him her lunch as he rested on her lap(they had the classroom all to themselves. Too many odd things had been happening around Ankush lately) when suddenly he felt her stiffen. She pushed him off her lap, causing him to fall, and she ran away as fast as she could.
Ankush lay on the floor for an entire half hour before he realized that something may have gone wrong with his candle… and sure enough, as he got home, he saw that it had burnt itself all the way through.
He went from candle store to candle store, the next day, looking for a candle that would last from the time he left for school till the time he got back, but he found none. Exhausted, in the dustiest part of the city, he tried one last time, checking in this old fashioned curio shop that had an old fashioned bell on the door. He asked for candles.
A young boy came up to him, holding a square, black one up.
“Magic candle, sir” he said.
Ankush, before his birthday, would have rolled his eyes, but now he asked, “It burns forever?”
“No.” said the boy. “Grants wishes. Light candle, make wish, blow out.”
“And the wish lasts?” asked Ankush.
“Of course.”
“How much?”
“One thousand rupees.”
It was ridiculous that Ankush had that amount of money with him, but he did. It was soon replaced with a square, black candle.
Back at home, Ankush eagerly took the candle and his green matchbox… which only had one, last, black headed match in it. Ankush began to panic. He thought. And he thought. And he thought. And he changed the wish he was going to make.
He lit the candle with his last, magic match, and said, “I wish I had a ring that gave me unlimited, unconditional wishes.”
A gold ring, with a blood red ruby set in the middle of it, appeared in his hand.
“Now to make it permanent.” He whispered.
He blew out the candle.
The ring disappeared. Ankush was in shock. He had no wishes left! He nearly screamed!
When he saw what was written at the bottom of the candle, he did scream.
Maybe the reason nobody believes in magic anymore is because there’s now so little of it. The candle said: MADE IN CHINA.
In school, Ankush hid in a corner. It was hard facing anybody. He cringed when Tanya came up to him, looking determined.
“Look.” she told him. “I do not know what’s been wrong with me the past couple of days, but I have not been myself, and what I did with you (eugh) was not me. Okay?”
Ankush nodded guiltily, head down.
“But…” she began, sounding puzzled, “I think, somehow… I got to know you.”
Ankush’s head snapped up.
“I think I like you, sorta, I think, as a person, and… if we could just take things slow… I’d like…”
Ankush’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t need matches…?” he whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” he said, quickly. And that was that..
And maybe the reason nobody believes in magic anymore is because they can’t recognize how truly normal it is.
THE END
Once upon a time, there was a magic matchbox, filled with magical matches. But nobody truly believes in magic anymore, so they lad, dusty, abandoned, in an old curio shop in the dustiest part of the city. It was an old fashioned type of store (the whole area was old fashioned), and it had one of those old fashioned bells on its door that rang when a customer entered, as it did the day the story began.
The person who had come in was known as Mr. Rankashish, due to unavoidable circumstances concerning his birth. He was holding his ten year old son by the hand, whose name was Rajan, and this was Mr. Rankashish’s fault, although Rajan really didn’t mind. In fact, Rajan was grateful to his father for not giving him his brother’s name. Ankush, who would be turning 16 in a week.
Now, although Rajan thought his brother’s name was a stupid one, he loved his brother dearly and wanted to get him something really, really cool for his birthday, which is why the child was out shopping with his father. Rajan hadn’t seen anything cool enough until Mr. Rankashish, an antique lover, had dragged him into the store.
The match box had caught Rajan’s eye. As his father looked around, he walked over to the table it was lying on. He picked it up, and then wiped his hand on his shirt to get the dust off his fingers. He looked closely at the box.
It was green. Smooth and green, all over, even at the side, where the match was struck. It didn’t even look like a matchbox, but he knew it was one, because it had the words “Magic Matchbox” written on it in black.
“You like, sir?”
Rajan looked up into the black eyes of a young boy, a few years older than him.
“What does it do?” asked Rajan.
“Grants wishes. You light these matches – “the boy took open the box, opened it, and showed the wooden matches inside, with black heads, “– make wish, it comes true.”
Rajan’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yes sir. But when flame goes out – phoosh – wish also go.”
But Rajan wasn’t listening, he was fishing in his pockets.
“How much?”
Two hundred rupees.”
And, even though it was all Rajan had after saving up for two months, it was gone, and so was the boy, leaving only Rajan and his matchbox behind.
Which is how Ankush ended up with the matchbox on his birthday, which he pretended to be extremely exited over when he heard how much Rajan had spent on it. Inside his head, he reminded himself never to let his brother go shopping alone with his father again.
He was turning the box over in his hands at night, after everyone had gone to sleep. It really was a nice box, he decided, and he was gong to like it. For two hundred rupees, he’d better like it.
Then the lights went out.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, which did nothing to get the lights back. He wasn’t sleepy yet. He opened the matchbox, in the dark, and struck a match on the side before he remembered the side was smooth. Nonetheless, a green flame appeared and lit up the room.
Ankush stared at it. Then, for the heck of it, he said, “I wish the electricity would some back!” At that very moment, the lights came back on. Ankush laughed – what a coincidence! He blew the match out.
And was immediately plunged into darkness again.
“Hey!” he said, obviously learning nothing from his previous encounter with the word. He struck another match, and looked for a candle. “Wish I could find another candle before this match goes out.”
He did, of course, and still found nothing strange about it. It really is true that nobody believes in magic anymore. Except Rajan, obviously. Ankush it the candle, and was placing it on his desk when it fell over when it fell over, immediately plunging him into darkness again.
“Bah!”, he exclaimed, which was not more effective than the word “Hey!” in the slightest.
He picked the candle up, lit it with a third match, set it on his desk and then sat on his bed, illuminated in the bright, green light which Ankush was(finally) beginning to find a little strange.
“I wish I knew why the flame is green.” he said, thoughtfully, and immediately, it came to him that it was a magic matchbox, it really was, and the green flame was a magic flame that really granted wishes, and that Ankush would really forget all that as soon as the candle flame went out. So, using his brains at last, he found a pen and wrote everything down before the flame went out. Fortunately, since the flame was on a candle instead of a match, he was able to complete his task without his flame even flickering. He then blew the candle out, forgot everything, lit a match, read the note, made a rhinoceros appear in his room and then blew out the match very quickly indeed.
And now there was one more person who believed in magic.
What would you wish for, if you had a lot of temporary wishes? Wiser men than Ankush would have wished to see their future, or to eat rare food, just for the experience, or to visit exotic lands or see amazing sights… unfortunately, Ankush wasn’t as wise as the men who were wiser than he was.
And he had just become a 16 year old male.
The next day at school, he sat alone in class(he was usually the first to arrive. That day was no exception, even though he had taken a few extra minutes to hug his brother fiercely) as he lit a candle.
“I wish Tanya Jacobs would fall in love with me.” he wished, because he had become a typical 16 year old male. He then shoved the green flamed candle into his locker to protect the flame from anything that might blow it out. He waited, in the class corner so he could be alone.
It really wasn’t an eternity before she finally came, but it certainly felt like it. She walked in, as beautiful as ever, her face looking a little flushed, her eyes slightly wild, until she turned around and saw him. Ignoring the other few classmates who had come in, she walked slowly, straight to Ankush, whose heart was pounding terribly hard. It pounded dangerously hard as she sat beside him, moving in awfully close. She took his hand and squeezed it tenderly – his heart gave him a break as it stopped pounding and skipped a beat. It skipped another beat. And another beat. By the eight skip, Ankush knew he had to do something to save his life, so he tried to look at her, smiled and gave a weak “Hi.”
He couldn’t believe she was looking at him like that.
“Hey.” she breathed. “I… wanted to – ”
“AAAH! FIRE! ANKUSH, IT’S COMING FROM YOUR LOCKER!” a girl screamed.
“Wha – ” said Ankush, dreamily, getting lost in Tanya’s eyes.
“ANKUSH!”
He turned. He saw the smoke. He swore. He jumped out of his desk, rushing to his locker as he fumbled in his pocket for the keys.
Tanya was thinking, “My Hero…”
As soon as the locker was open, water was thrown inside. It continued till the fire was out, despite Ankush wailing, “Wait! Wait!”
Blinking at the smoke, water and ash that had now been added to his locker, he turned to Tanya, was staring at him like he was some kind of idiot. He had been afraid of that. He still tried one last time, though. “You were going to say something?” he asked, almost desperately.
She even looked beautiful while throwing up.
Ankush tried again several times that day. And the next day. He tried it with some other girls, to avoid doing Tanya major psychological damage. But the flame kept going out each time, and he was helpless to stop it. He used the matchbox three different times to get teachers to feel kind and forgiving towards him, and he ran way before the matches went out. He used it to scare some people he disliked, on eight separate occasions, blowing the match out before the terrifying beast of the day could actually hurt them. In the evenings, he consoled himself over his failure with Tanya by hanging out in his favorite television show.
And then he had an idea.
It took some preparation. He set up stones, and sacrificed a lot of the flooring in his room to arrange them in a circle. He set his candle in the middle of it, closed his windows, and told his parents and the maid not to touch the candle. They agreed, amusedly, what harm could happen?
Ankush lit his candle in the morning. He would come back in the evening, and transfer the flame to another candle. That way he could keep the flame going as long as he wanted it to. He made his wish.
This time, everything worked out great. He came into class and found her waiting for him. She wouldn’t stop kissing him until they heard the teacher was coming. Even then, she wouldn’t leave his side, she went with him wherever he went, her hand held his whenever the teacher wasn’t looking, she wrote him endless notes, and from time to time, she stole a daring kiss. Ankush was so blissful he couldn’t even think… until lunchtime came along
She was feeding him her lunch as he rested on her lap(they had the classroom all to themselves. Too many odd things had been happening around Ankush lately) when suddenly he felt her stiffen. She pushed him off her lap, causing him to fall, and she ran away as fast as she could.
Ankush lay on the floor for an entire half hour before he realized that something may have gone wrong with his candle… and sure enough, as he got home, he saw that it had burnt itself all the way through.
He went from candle store to candle store, the next day, looking for a candle that would last from the time he left for school till the time he got back, but he found none. Exhausted, in the dustiest part of the city, he tried one last time, checking in this old fashioned curio shop that had an old fashioned bell on the door. He asked for candles.
A young boy came up to him, holding a square, black one up.
“Magic candle, sir” he said.
Ankush, before his birthday, would have rolled his eyes, but now he asked, “It burns forever?”
“No.” said the boy. “Grants wishes. Light candle, make wish, blow out.”
“And the wish lasts?” asked Ankush.
“Of course.”
“How much?”
“One thousand rupees.”
It was ridiculous that Ankush had that amount of money with him, but he did. It was soon replaced with a square, black candle.
Back at home, Ankush eagerly took the candle and his green matchbox… which only had one, last, black headed match in it. Ankush began to panic. He thought. And he thought. And he thought. And he changed the wish he was going to make.
He lit the candle with his last, magic match, and said, “I wish I had a ring that gave me unlimited, unconditional wishes.”
A gold ring, with a blood red ruby set in the middle of it, appeared in his hand.
“Now to make it permanent.” He whispered.
He blew out the candle.
The ring disappeared. Ankush was in shock. He had no wishes left! He nearly screamed!
When he saw what was written at the bottom of the candle, he did scream.
Maybe the reason nobody believes in magic anymore is because there’s now so little of it. The candle said: MADE IN CHINA.
In school, Ankush hid in a corner. It was hard facing anybody. He cringed when Tanya came up to him, looking determined.
“Look.” she told him. “I do not know what’s been wrong with me the past couple of days, but I have not been myself, and what I did with you (eugh) was not me. Okay?”
Ankush nodded guiltily, head down.
“But…” she began, sounding puzzled, “I think, somehow… I got to know you.”
Ankush’s head snapped up.
“I think I like you, sorta, I think, as a person, and… if we could just take things slow… I’d like…”
Ankush’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t need matches…?” he whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” he said, quickly. And that was that..
And maybe the reason nobody believes in magic anymore is because they can’t recognize how truly normal it is.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment