Magic Box part 1: Tiny doll with big powers

I am a Worrier, one of the best around. My mom passed along this lovely trait, and coming from a long line of Worriers she felt it was only fitting to gift me with her tiny wooden box of worry dolls when I turned 12. Each doll is a colorful, wiry, stringy little thing, a little smaller than the big enter key on the right of your keyboard. It was explained to me that every night a worry is to be removed from the mind and laid on a doll.

Propped up on my elbow, turned toward my nightside table, I would reach into the box, grasp the legs of a doll, recite a worry and place the doll beneath the lamp. Many times there were enough worries to call upon every doll in the box. Those tiny little things, flat on their backs, arms spread wide, were bench pressing the weight of my burdens night after night.

In the morning they would be grabbed in a bunch and dropped back into the box. But like some kind of African fable, over time the dolls started to disappear. It was so gradual, I hardly even noticed until I reached in and there were only three left. I decided that a doll had to use all of its molecular energy to make the worry go away, and by the time the worry disappeared, so did the doll. My last few dolls were used almost as wishes, for wishes are worries turned optimistic, and they too slipped away having carried out their duties.

Today, Thursday, March 12th, I opened a big, magical box and sticking up amid many other treasures were the stringy little arms of a worry doll. It is lying on the desk in front of me as I write this, and I can almost hear it say "Go ahead, lay it on me!".

Life is remarkable. I have goosebumps.