The Book, the Map, and the Key

Once upon a time there was a silly innocent little kid named Ivan, and he was eight years old. 

One day, he opened up his knapsack in the car, while he was on his way to his grandfather's house for some time when he noted that he had nothing in his knapsack but a map making parchment, a box, a key, and a looking glass.

His grandfather's house was a very big house, and in that house, he loved to explore. He had with him always, his looking glass, and the key in his vest pocket, and his vest had a lot of pockets. He liked to pretend he was on a ship (or on some sort of adventure) almost every day, and this was it's most fun when playing in his grandfather's ginormous backyard.

One day he was crossing a stream, and he had to jump over the water atop the dry rocks. Once across it, he just took off running acting as if he were souring in a plane and then landed with a "Neeeeeeer. Psshshh." He was so happy he could fly and skip and jump and do wha ever he wanted and he just loved any activity where he could also be daydreaming and imagining. 

One day the key just went missing. He couldn't find it anywhere and it must have slipped out of his pocket while he was playing in his grandfather's back yard.

It was an interesting key and coincidentally, he had just happened to lock up his looking glass in his box which had nothing else in it now. Now his treasure was locked away and he could not look through his looking glass for land from his make believe ship, or decode riddles in fine print from any of his mystery books to solve mysteries as a detective. Now he was at a loss for means in which he could be pretending. 

Well, at least he had a book. In his room, there was an old wooden clock sitting on the desk and the minute hand ticked rather loudly. He also had a map. The map was a whole plot of land, without any water but a stream which lead to a small pond... it reminded him of his Grandfather's backyard.

"Once upon a time," the book read, "there were four angles to view the world from, in which case, angles you can determine what is right and what is wrong." Ivan stopped and looked up from the book and wondered about the right and wrong being true of false, or good and bad. "Hmmmmm... interesting," he thought to himself. "By then end of this story," the book read, "you will know which way to go and just how to get there..." Then Ivan stopped again and wondered again, "how can I know which way to go after finding out which angles to see the world?" Ivan thought again about the backyard and wondered where to go to find his missing key.

Ivan put the book down and looked puzzled by the statement, he was questioning in his mind "how could one know exactly where to go after reading a story, and in the event that one knows what is right and what is wrong, how could this determine such a quest? And furthermore, where was he going to go after reading this book?" Most puzzling was the question "how could this all be taking place once upon a time?" He remembered wondering about this a long long time ago, and perhaps it was when he had first been able to recognize what he was hearing when he heard the words "once upon a time." 

You see in stories, they often tell you that once upon a time, there were some events and circumstances in which case, a main character was living their life in a setting, however they often don't have to tell you what was happening just the once upon that time. However, this didn't change the boy's imagination of the number one sitting up on top of a clock. But once was different than just the number one this being upon a time could only mean that there was something happening at that time... one time... and he imagined it was a long long long time ago. 

"Book 1: The Bright Side," The Book Read,

"Once upon a time, there was a bright side and a dark side to things within the home of a man who lived in a cottage in the woods. His home had many interesting things in it and they were all either interesting and unique and spectacular or messy, old and needing repair or simply throwing away, it was garbage. He didn't really live a bad lifestyle but he could have had a few too many miserable days, and he didn't really live too spectacular of a life, but he could have seen some real spectacles in his time as well. In fact, the man was often seen with those two things going on at once for him, where on one hand there was a bright side, and the other there was a dark. The man was middle aged, and he lived alone, and he didn't dress too poorly. One day, there was a shaking of the room and his things were all knocked loose onto the ground so that there were intriguing nice things being mixed up with the old junk he had been meaning to clean out of his home and everything was just one great big mess. In the end of it all, he wound up cleaning his entire cottage and clearing out everything that wasn't so good looking or working anymore, and made certain that he would keep all of his things in need of restore organized in a restoration room for when he felt like repairing things. Then he organized all of his nice things into his office, and all of his regular things were in his office. The man was not all too troubled anymore at least with all of his things organized and with all things broken at least being out of his sight, it was nice to be able to spend some time looking at things from the bright side. The moral of the story is to go to the room where there are nice things.

Ivan thought of his Grandfather's trophy room, but didn't think that it was a good time to go snooping about in the night.

"Story 2: The Logical Side"

"Once upon a time there were may intriguing things to do in the town of Kalei, where there lived a young woman who was much in need of a particular service. You see, it was her truck that needed repairing and she was going to be unable to go anywhere if she didn't go out and walk to the nearest mechanic and have a talk with him. After making only small trips out to the market for groceries, one day, she set out on an adventure and decided to walk out farther than she had been before on foot before the big break down, and made it all the way across town when she found that she had forgotten her wallet. Well, the mechanic was still going to have to drive down to her house anyway and it was going to take an awfully long time for her to make it home unless she were offered a ride too, but she decided that that this could seem too dangerous to be getting into a car with a stranger. Well this was an awfully scary decision for her to make: sitting all scared there in the stranger's truck not knowing if she should make it home safe or terrifyingly might just be kidnapped. Knowing this would be perfectly impractical for her to believe she might not be safe, but still not perfectly illogical as she can after all become a kidnapped victim, as kidnappings weren't at all too hard to come by, she made logical her decision not to walk the rest of the way to the mechanic and instead changed path toward a small inlet of stores in order to explore, since she had already walked so far, thinking she might rather call a mechanic another day and walk more for exercise in the mean time anyway. 

"In the inlet she had an epiphany. She sat down in a coffee shop and then in a chair where there was a book on the table which read "no better place than a chair." She then picked up the book and read about how cozy it was to be sitting in one's own chair at home, and in which case the main character was a woman who had been sitting in other chairs all day long only to come home to her own personal cozy armchair and really have a chance to relax and let off steam which was better than sitting in a cozy chair when you still had work to do or ever having the displeasure of having a less than cozy chair to sit in. 

"Her epiphany was this. In the end of her day, she will have avoided sitting in a less than cozy situation in order to have sat in a cozier one in that cafe-- if you catch my drift, and what was better yet, was that she was certain that while in the cafe and likely on her way home while she was walking, she was almost certain that she wasn't going to be kidnapped. The moral of the story is that you are better staying where it is safe than going where you might wind up being sorry."

After reading two from his grandfather's big book of short stories, his grandfather left on the desk of his guest room, where Ivan always slept when it was time to visit, Ivan realized that it was time for him to go to sleep. The clock ticked, and he clambered off to sleep under the cozy soft covers in his nice bedroom, where there were nice things.

Book 3: Be Aware

Chapter 4: Have Faith