Eight years old and he’d never tried the wardrobe door. He’d wanted to, longed to, but he knew the rules as well as he knew the consequences. Repeated warnings and barely hidden threats had always helped suppress any thought of rebellion. But never the curiosity which fed it.
Now he stood before the large forbidding oak door once again. Focused. Staring. But with a new courage this time. A recklessness perhaps. Whatever the reason, he knew this time was different.
Tentatively, he reached out a hand. To his astonishment, the door was unlocked! A sharp involuntary intake of breath, and slowly, as if occupying an altogether different time frame, the door began to creak open, revealing a further fraction of its secrets with every beat of his pounding heart.
It was a door to another world. Not darkness, but an ocean of light. A wave of bright golden sunshine flooded past him, for a moment carrying with it his very ability to breathe. A second’s pause, then, as if drawn forward by the power of something as yet unseen, he stepped through.
Sweet air filled his lungs. The sound of birdsong. Limitless sky painted an impossibly deep shade of blue. Warmth and colour embraced him on all sides, a velvet-lined assault on every one of his senses. It was the magical world he’d dreamt of.
A paradise he enjoyed for a full two minutes, until they returned and locked him back inside the old wardrobe.
