Dr. Roger’s Magic Box
by Philip J. Lees
The box didn’t look magic, not at all. In fact it looked quite ordinary, like something you would pack your old toys into when you knew you probably weren’t going to play with them again, but you weren’t ready to throw them away, not just yet. Or it could have been one of those boxes you see on a shelf at the back of the gift shop, wrapped in shiny paper left open at the top. Or even, if it had been painted in brighter colors, it might have been one of those boxes where you open the lid and a grinning face jumps out at you on a spring. BOOINNGG! A Jack in the box, with shaggy hair, check shirt and arms spread wide.
But there was no Jack in Dr. Roger’s box. There was something much more mysterious. It was full of magic. That’s why every time you looked at it, it always seemed a bit different. Wasn’t that side yellow before, not brown? And wasn’t the top covered with stripes, not squares of blue and white? Was it maybe a bit taller now than it had been before, a bit shorter on one side, or longer on the other? It was hard to tell, but it seemed that whenever you looked away from it, then looked back again, something about it had changed.
If you found it where it was now, sitting on the floor in the middle of Dr. Roger’s laboratory, and there was no one else there at the time, you’d probably want to find out what was inside. You’d try to open it, expecting that you could just lift the lid on the top, fold it back on its hinges, and see what was there.
That would be a big mistake.
Luckily for you, it wouldn’t be so easy. Let’s suppose you walked into the laboratory, being as quiet as possible in case Dr. Roger was there waiting, and you looked all around, making sure you were quite alone. Then let’s suppose you walked over to the box, right there on the floor in the middle of the room, keeping your eyes on it the whole time so it wouldn’t have a chance to change. You’d have to watch just the box, and not pay attention to anything else in the laboratory. Not the microscope and the beakers and the spiral glass tubes on the bench over there, oh no! Not the rows of glass bottles full of mysterious powders and liquids on the shelves on the far wall. And certainly not the stereo system with the enormous loudspeakers where Dr. Roger played his strange music at full volume every evening until it seemed the house was going to fall down. Definitely not that. You’d just keep your eyes on the magic box until you were only one step away, and then you took that last step and reached out with your hand and touched the top. And what would happen then?
Nothing. That’s what.
So you’d probably put your other hand on the top of the box, too, to see how it felt—not really rough, but not smooth, either. And maybe you’d slide your thumbs over the edge and down the side a little way, to see if there was a crack, or a lock, or a hole, or a hinge, or anything that would help you to open it. Maybe you’d close your eyes so you could feel it better. You’d slide your hands apart until they reached the corners of the box, then you could lean over it and feel all around the sides, then the back, trying to find the secret, but you wouldn’t find it, not yet, not like that.
Lucky you.
About now you’d start to wonder where Dr. Roger is? And how does he open the box? Maybe it’s something to do with the music. After all, he must have a reason for playing that music every night. Could that be it, do you think?
And where is Dr. Roger? If you switched on the music, would he hear it and come back from wherever he’s gone to? You know how to switch it on, because you saw Dr. Roger do it once. All you have to do is press that round, black button in the top left hand corner and the music will start by itself. Just press the button, that’s all.
Let’s say you leave the box and cross over to the side of the room where the stereo is, so you’re standing right in front of it. Do you press the button? All you have to do is reach out with one finger. Do you dare?
Of course you do! You press the button and you feel the click. For a few seconds nothing happens, then all of a sudden the music starts. There are drums, and a bass guitar, and an electric guitar, all of them booming and rattling and screaming so loud it makes your ears shake. But you turn and you look at the box because now you feel something, a feeling that’s growing inside you, and you know the magic is coming, very soon.
The magic is inside the box, where Dr. Roger has trapped it, taken it away from the world and kept it locked up where nobody can see it. You know that, and you know that’s why you’re here, to set the magic free. And something is happening. The box hasn’t opened, exactly, but the top of the box isn’t really there any more, it’s turned into smoke, and out of the smoke come dancing colors, like a rainbow tied into knots and twisting itself round and round. The knotted rainbow rises up and gets bigger and bigger until it’s all around the box. Now the magic isn’t inside the box, the box is inside the magic, and the box changes with the colors, changing shape, changing size, changing the patterns on the sides, as if it’s a lot of different boxes, each staying for just a second before another comes to take its place.
And suddenly Dr. Roger is there, on the other side of the room. He’s very tall, and very thin, and he looks very angry. He must have heard the music. He’s saying something, but you can’t hear him. You just see his mouth open and his lips moving. So you call to the magic and you point at Dr. Roger.
“Get him!” you shout.
Dr. Roger’s face changes. He looks frightened. The rainbow smoke is moving towards him, and now it’s around him, dragging him to the box. He’s waving his arms and his mouth is wide open, as if he can’t breathe properly.
Then Dr. Roger vanishes. One moment he’s there, bent backwards as the rainbow smoke pulls him over the box. The next moment he’s gone, and the smoke is spreading out, thinner and thinner, disappearing into the corners of the room. The magic is escaping through the cracks in the walls, the doors, the ceiling, until it’s all gone, back into the world where it belongs.
It’s just you left, now, and the music stops. It’s so quiet you don’t want to breathe. But the magic is free again, and as for Dr. Roger, where is he? You know where he is. He’s in the box.
Do you really want to open it?
- End -
© Copyright Philip J. Lees 2006