The Shadow Box

1 In the Shadow Box, one thing becomes another. Nothing is fixed, anything can become anything else: the two men across the room, whose whispering annoys me, may become cows silently grazing, with an occasional melodious 'Moo! ' World peace may break out any day. We've seen presentiments of that before. Inventions come from that Box— the car, computers, electicity— laughed at, at first, they soon transform our world. Nothing has yet transformed the heart of humankind, but that too is possible. Suppose there's someone in the Box whose smile Illumines all whose path he crosses; the whole world will change. 2 I inhabit a life of disappointment, in the doldrums of my middle years. The bright pathways I took, when young, toward love, career, and money, have been obstructed for so long that all I hope for now is not to die— or to die, even, just not to incur the wrath of Fate's 'other shoe'. Yet the mind that sees this picture projects a frozen road. The logic of yesterday can never create Tomorrow! Somewhere a witch has cast a spell! Send her back to the Shadow Box— let the true Beloved emerge in her place! Stranger things have happened! But, you say, 'Such things do not just happen. They are an alchemy. The force of change, the Fire of awareness —must come from you. Then I shout, 'Yes! The freedom to begin lies here with me— that price I can pay! '