A writer never knows when inspiration will arrive or from where. Because algorithm, I stumbled upon the podcast of a friend’s wife. It was a clip in which she discussed junk drawers with her friend. They laughed in delight at the idea of the drawer opening up like the wardrobe to Narnia.
An hour later, I had 1,700 words.
Jammie, so nicknamed for her love of footie pajamas, followed her brother Matt up the dim creaking stairs, her eyes fixed on the close-cropped black hair that had earned the slender boy a moniker of his own. “Gramma missed a spot, Matchstick,” she teased, pointing at the tuft on his head.
He reached back and felt for the place, his lips hissing a derisive sound when he found it. “That’s my lucky spot. She says if you find one of those, you’ll be lucky ‘til your next haircut.”
“I think that’s one of those things grown-ups say to hide their mistakes,” she retorted.
He looked over his shoulder as they neared the top of the stairs. “With all that reading you do, I can’t believe you’ve never heard of that.”
“You read as much as I do and I bet you’ve never heard of it, either.”
The dark shape of the heavy oak door emerged from the shadows before them, a dull brass doorknob reflecting the oil lamp at the bottom of the stairs. Instead of reaching for the knob, he turned and looked down at her. “You read way more than I do.”
“Yeah, but you read en-cy-clo-pedias,” she replied, drawing out the enunciation as a sign of reverence. She’d always wanted to enjoy them – knowledge was important, her daddy advised – but she just didn’t have the head for it, her grandma said.
“I didn’t have a choice, you know.”
“But you like them now, right?”
He stared at his sister, her face aglow with wonder and curiosity. Her eyes could drink in all the details of the world, and still her inquisitiveness would not be sated. “I guess. They’re now like reading an old story you know by heart.”
“I know all about that. My books never showed me that symbol you found, though. My stories are all made up, and writers are liars.”
“Who do you think they use for encyclopedias? Are they liars, too?”
Jammie was undeterred. “They’re the non-lying kind, I bet. Exception to the rule.”
“Uh huh. Grandma said the story of the desk is made-up, too.”
“Then how’d that symbol get into the Book of T?” Jammie retorted with a self-satisfied smile.
“They don’t call them the ‘book of such-n-such letter’. They’re called ‘volumes’.”
“My name for them is more fun, though.”
Matt couldn’t disagree. He shrugged. “You wanna stand here on the threshold arguing or go take a look?”
She reached past him and twisted the brass knob, which resisted. He put his hand over hers and they turned the knob together. It released with a click.
He pushed the door inwards, the hinges protesting like a ghost fighting its ethereal chains. Darkness poured out at them like ink spilled from a bottle. “You still got dad’s lantern?” The metal cranking sound was the only response she offered. He laughed, “That thing must be a thousand years old.” She stood beside him but still didn’t say anything. “Hey, you OK? You’ve been here before you know.”
“I was five with dad and grandpa and it wasn’t the middle of the night.”
“You’re twice as old now.”
“And I’ve read a hundred times more scary stories.”
“Give me the lantern and I’ll go in. You stay here and slam the door shut if some goobitty-gah eats me and tries to escape.”
“You’re funny,” she said, but he knew his humor had done the trick. They walked together into the room, the old lantern’s light surprisingly strong.
The attic spread out before them, a cacophony of clutter draped with dust and deep shadows. Old suitcases and steamer trunks lined the wall to their right with mixes of cardboard boxes scattered around and on top of them. To their left stood clothing racks under dingy sheets, covered mirrors, hat boxes, and a few bare mannequin toros. An old radio the size of a small refrigerator stood nearby, as did some old speakers nearly as tall. Odds, ends, and sundry haphazardly filled much of the other available floor space, and they passed through like strangers navigating a crowd.
At last, they reached the far end of the attic, where waited an enormous shape covered with floral-patterned sheets.
“So that’s the an-teak desk?” she asked enjoying her play on words.
He groaned. “Your jokes are worse than dad’s. It’s a teak desk from antiquity. That’s older than antique.” He grabbed the sheets. “Close your eyes and hold your breath.” He watched her cheeks puff out then tugged the filthy coverings away. Gentle as he was, the disturbed dust still filled the air like someone had shaken a desiccated snow globe.
They coughed and rubbed their eyes, and when the air had settled, they beheld the magnificent and monstrous desk.
“There’s no way granddad’s granddad stole that thing and carried it across Asia,” Jammie said. She placed the lantern on a nearby crate to illuminate the area. “It must be ten feet across and a thousand pounds! You’d need an elephant to pull it.”
“Maybe he stole that from the raja, too.”
“I thought it was a maharajah,” she said, her eyes tracing the intricate carvings of animals and unfamiliar symbols.
“Close enough,” he replied, himself distracted by the marvel before them. He began to circle away from her to the place on the other side.
“Nuh uh, ‘cy-clo-pedia boy.”
He sighed. “Fine. A raja is a lesser king, whereas—” he cut himself off as he heard his sister snickering.
“Nerd!” she jibed.
He laughed in spite of himself. She loved her little games.
“I can’t believe you still remember that symbol you saw five years ago,” she said as she ran her hand along the desktop’s smooth surface.
“Me either. I don’t think I would have ‘cept granddad slapped my hand away from it as though it was hot. Grab the lantern, it’s here on the front of this drawer.”
She joined him and the lantern’s light revealed a single oversized drawer that occupied the lower two-thirds of the desk’s right side. “I could almost fit in there, I bet,” she said with not a tiny amount of suspicion.
Matt squatted and pointed to a symbol above the dull brass handle, both of which were dwarfed by the massive front of the drawer. “See, this trident-shaped symbol is called a Trishul, though this is much more intricate than what I found—”
“In the Book of T?”
“In the Book of T,” he laughed. “Stand back, I’m going to open it.” Jammie leaned against the wall, lantern held high. He grabbed the handle, but the drawer wouldn’t budge. With both hands, he pulled harder and finally it slid open. The two of them leaned forward as the lantern illuminated the dark depths of the space.
“It’s a junk drawer,” Jammie said flatly.
Indeed, so it appeared to be. In the sharp light of the lantern, they saw a spool of thread, some fishing lures, a scissors, some knives, and a whetstone. There were scraps of paper and quill pens. A dried-up inkpot. A thimble and measuring tape. Some dice and a battered playing card. An inventory of bobs-and-ends that would have filled a page, maybe two, piled upon one another, layer over layer, and waiting for an excavation by an archaeologist with nothing better to do.
There was nothing at all interesting to the two children who’d spent the morning dreaming of the treasures they’d find in the mysterious desk of their granddad’s granddad’s legend. There wasn’t a single coin or pirate map or firecracker anywhere to be seen.
“It’s just junk,” she repeated.
Her brother, who had just enough knowledge to make anything interesting, tried to save their quest from ruin. “Now wait here, young lady!” he said, raising his hand with a flourish before plunging his arm up to his shoulder into the compartment. He rummaged around, ignoring her dubious face. “I present to you, hidden long years beneath the roots of the Yim-Yam tree,” he straightened up and presented the object in his hand, “the cork of the most noble king of the Whippoo tribes.”
Jammie rolled her eyes. “Is the Whippoo even a real people?”
“They could be,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Who knows what lost peoples may have contributed to the contents of the World’s Most Magnificent and Magnanimous Drawer of Oddments!”
“If I wanted to play with junk, I’d dig into my toybox for the broken doll parts that still live at the bottom.”
“Fine, fine. Well, I tried to make an adventure of it for you. I didn’t really know what to expect, other than that symbol might mean more than a decoration.” The memory of his granddad slapping his hand returned.
“Well, you sounded like you’d hoped this old thing would transport us to far-off lands, like a flying carpet.”
“Whatever,” he replied, pushing against the heavy drawer with his hip.
A metallic click stopped him short. It caught Jammie’s attention, too. “What was that?”
Matt stepped away from the desk and knelt in the lantern light, seeing only a Trishul-shaped hole. He probed it with his longest finger but couldn’t locate the button. He peered into the dark drawer again, expecting to see his fingertip. He didn’t: the inside face of the drawer was solid where the other side of the hole should be. “That’s weird.”
And then, from within the depths of the drawer, a gearwork mechanism whirred and clicked. Too eager to remove his finger safely, Matt fell onto his backside as the front of the drawer came apart, unravelling like a bundle of wood when the twine breaks. When the motion stopped, the wood had mysteriously created two steps that led up into the drawer.
Together they peered down into the opening that had been filled with miscellany.
The junk was gone. The bottom of the drawer was gone.
But a path of glowing green stone led away from the steps and down toward some unseen light at the end of a corridor. The space that had been the drawer was now a low archway through which two children could squeeze.
“I told you I could fit in there,” Jammie said, wryly.
With a shared look of excitement, she took the lantern, Matt took her hand, and together they took their first steps down into the hidden world that lay beyond.
I have 2 criticisms, though I’m otherwise happy with how easily this came together.
First, “An-Teak” is a terrible joke and a worse name for a story. I might leave the pun, since Jammie clearly has a “dad joke” sense of humor, but that title will have to change.
Second, I need to do a better job describing the desk drawer (and probably the desk itself to lend to the build-up). I have a vision but don’t think my words capture it.
I had a third criticism, which I changed before sharing the story here. I leaned in too heavily with the nicknames, and felt silly on my first read-through. So, I gave Matchstick the name Matt and stuck to that. I might just remove it all together. It depends on how serious the story is.
Anyway, I share this as an example of how easy it is to start writing sometimes, which is advice I need to take to heart. I’ve been struggling the last 2 years, and it’s nice to see my tools aren’t rusted away to nothing.
Good luck with your own writing!
–Mike
(C) Michael Wallevand, April 2026
The Lost Royals 