What Once Was

He had one box. For everything. Full of the pencils he refused to use for school, the pens to tattoo himself with, the paper he would make airplanes from, the hats he wore backwards, the glasses he was blind without but still didn't wear, the shells she gave him, the sticks he loved to use for duels with dragons, elves, dwarfs, friends, enemies, the record player he saved in the tsunami of digital, the pillow he always slept on, his stuffed orca that would glitter in the moonlight, his favourite book of all time that was full of skeleton detectives, hats, revolvers and that grey area in between right and wrong.

Or, that's what his box was full of. Full of memories, bubbling, bursting.

Now there's just a slip of paper in the bottom of the box. And scrawled in messy handwriting — handwriting he once knew:

There once was more.