In every history lived a little girl or boy who found a book.
It’s pages crinkled and curled over, hugging the faded ink scrawled across and spilled into a story. A story which rose up around the child in the form of warriors and airships, kraken and unicorns, castles and cliff edges where wit and rapier crossed.
Deep in the curve of caverns and under the sunny seas, these children leapt into exploration. Because of curiousity.
Until one day, they found a loose scrap of paper. Pink maybe or blue, one of the sticky note squares their parents used to decorate the refrigerator with.
These squares told them what they needed to do. It gave them a quest toward fame and fortune. Go to school it said. Get a job it said. Find a partner it said. Get a house it said. Have children it said.
The children went to school. They left their books under a pile of reality. Delving into new worlds, still clinging to curiousity.
Until one day someone said these children spent too much time imagining. They were lazy. They did not know how to work. Even if they wore suits and fetched coffees for bosses. They only had thoughts and no skills.
The children turned away from these square people who lived when imagination was not a universe of pixels stringing paperback to backpacks.
They returned to their books. They built an airship, they fashioned a compass and they found a map. They took to the skies and disappeared in the clouds, among the million flocks of birds with the same brown wings.
Their history passed down to friends who built airships and a few family members too but caught, between the curve of each word settled the quiet meow of a cat, as it fell asleep next to another book.