She never dared to step off the path. She was the responsible one, always keeping her two feet on the ground. She moved through life cautiously, afraid the world would fall apart with a single misstep.

Holding everything together was exhausting, but her imagination offered solace – a secret escape from the heaviness of reality. There – only there – could she let herself be free.

For years, she sculpted her imagination like a muscle… until one day she decided she was too old for an imagination. It was too impractical and too dangerous. So, she locked it away and threw away  the key.

Years went by. The key rusted in a forgotten drawer—until one restless night, it slipped free.

At first, she managed to keep her imagination reined in, directing it down a safe path. But soon it broke free, jumping into a hot air balloon and dragging her with it. It longed to fly, to see the world from high in the sky.

She tried to warn it of the danger, but it didn’t listen. It had been locked up too long. And eventually, the balloon deflated, sending her crashing into the branches below.

She thought once it saw her bruises, her imagination would learn its lesson and stay close to the ground. But she was wrong, it still longed to feel the freedom of soaring high in the sky.

This time, a dragon flew by and before she knew it, she was flying through the clouds again. At first, she tried to reason with her imagination to bring them back down to reality.

But in time, she decided to just enjoy the ride while it lasted. She realized she had spent so long bracing for the fall that she had missed the joy of the journey. Life, she thought, is stitched together from moments – some bruised, some magical.