Shapeshifting – a story

You have shifted again. Today you are a small box in a warehouse full of thousands of small boxes. You are sure that you are ordinary and unremarkable and that there is nothing inside you worth finding.

In a warehouse of a thousand small boxes, you are the only one that glows. You are still numinous, even today. There is brightness in you, even when you are least able to believe in yourself. It is not impossible to find you when you are just a small box. Even when you don’t want to be found. When I pick you up, you tell me to put you down, that you are nothing, that I misunderstood you. I do not tease you about being a talking box, but you are miraculous, whatever form you take.

You turn into a small bird. Just a little wren, plain as can be, and you fly from my hands. I’m going to have to chase you. I know this routine. I shall be a bird of prey then, as is traditional, and I will hunt you for as long as it takes and catch you as gently as I can, trying not to ruffle those little feathers.

I feel like we’ve been doing this for a long time. Lifetimes, perhaps. You tell me that you aren’t magical, and then you transform into some new being and run away from me. Some days I think perhaps this means I should not chase you. But you never run further than I can see you, and I think there is a part of you that wants to be found. Needs to be found. Needs me to see you despite your different forms and disguises. You aren’t hard to recognise.

You become a car park, and I become a tree to shelter you. You turn into a litter bin, and I become a yarn bombing. It’s always a bit of a go-to but I’m too tired to be especially original today. You’re back to trying to persuade me that you’re nothing extraordinary. You become a burned out car on the side of the road. I climb into your back seat, amidst twigs and litter, and I lie down and weep because I am exhausted and I don’t know what to do. At least if I lie here it will be hard for you to keep running away.

Of course if I just lie here, you can’t turn back into yourself, either. Assuming I have ever seen your true form. I think I have. Although I also think there are other forms that would be equally true, equally real. What I want most is a version of you I can put my arms around. It’s a selfish wish, perhaps. 

Once upon a time you asked me not to give up on you, to follow you when this madness began, and to remember your true form. It’s been a hard promise to keep, and sometimes I feel lost and tired and I wonder at the sense of it and whether I have made a terrible mistake. But then I think about you with your eyes bright, your face illuminated with joy and I remember why I said yes to this.

I get out of the broken car version of you. I wait to see if you will turn back into yourself this time.