once upon a time, in a land far far away, on a very ordinary day, much like this one, a baby was born.

when the midwife held up the baby, the mother gasped, because she saw a silver and turquoise wand grasped tightly between the fingers of the baby's right hand.

the wand was a symbol of wizardry. it meant that the baby was a wizard, with a wizard's powers.

i don't know what wizardry is like in your world, but in this world, it was full of goodness. it imbued the wizard with the power of beauty and magic and possibility and wonder and play – and the ability to make the heart's fondest wishes come true. sometimes they came true in likely ways, sometimes they came true in unlikely ways, but they always came true.

there was a time when all the babies in that land were born with wands between their fingers – the colors varied but there was always a wand – but one day, it just stopped, and no one ever knew why.

(i've read books and books about their history and i have my suspicions. a ship landed at their port for refueling and the people on the ship laughed at the people of the land with their wands. "wands and play are for children," they said, as they laughed and pointed and took pictures to show their friends and family. "you're too old to still be playing." it was shortly after that that some of the people began to forget about their wands, and shortly after that that the first baby was born without a wand between its fingers.)

without their wands, life was dreary indeed. slowly, the people forgot about the power of beauty and magic and possibility and wonder and play. they forgot about their power to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. they even forgot that there was such a thing as extraordinary at all.

and then, on that perfectly ordinary day, the baby with the silver and turquoise wand was born, and a spark was lit in everyone's heart.

(for in truth, the wand had nothing to do with their powers; it was just a reminder that they existed.)

the end.