Within the music box, tremendous energies churned.
Individually, dreams are fairly harmless things. Our minds are let out of their pens to frolic wildly amongst our experiences, picking up disparate bits of existence we have discarded and sewing them together. What-ifs and nevers are allowed, for a few brief moments, to be real. Then we wake up and get on with things. We need dreams to detoxify our minds, as well as to guide us.
Imagine what would happen if our dreams were stolen from us, harnessed somehow? Even the dreams of dogs, remnants of the urge to give chase to small furry things, have tremendous power. And how would we get on without dreams?
In hindsight, I should have destroyed that box the minute my mother gave it to me. But how was I to know?
I reflect on these things in my grassy green grave; red hard bark and the pure blue sky above me mingle with the perfume of newly cut grass, freshly mulched beds, sun baking the earth and plants releasing their juices into the air. Death is my final dream.