As I was walking home a couple weeks ago, a small voice hailed me.
“Want to buy a magic potion?” The speaker was a neighbor from up the street, a four-year old boy with dark straight hair, sitting with his Mom on the front steps of their house.
A box with three small bottles lay across his mother’s lap. She smiled at me and said, “He’s selling homemade magic potions.” She ruffled his hair, adding, “But you don’t really want to drink them of course!”
I nodded, and picked out a bottle and admired the vibrant purple liquid inside. “Tell me what this one does?” I asked the boy.

“That one digs a deep hole in the ground that fills up with purple water,” he explained carefully, then ducked his head and turned back toward his mother.
“Which is the one that makes you fly like a bird?” his Mom prompted.
“This one.” he scooped another bottle from the box with both hands and handed it to me. I put the purple one back and held up the second bottle. This bottle’s contents, a white translucent liquid with small white floating specks, didn’t grab me, much as I liked the idea of flying. I put it back.
“What about the last potion,” I asked, reaching for the third bottle, “What are its magic powers?” The liquid inside was a murky greenish brown.

“That one causes explosions.” the boy said, leaning forward, his eyes on the bottle, “I don’t know why but it makes everything it touches just explode.”
I hastily put that bottle back in the box. He picked it up and shook it gently as if to experiment with exploding something. I noticed a splintery stick of wood left over from a building project lying beside the bottles in the box.
“That’s for sale too,” he told me, “wood is very useful.”
“You need to let her know what they all cost,” his mother said as he picked up the stick of wood and started demonstrating its usefulness by banging it on the stairway’s metal railing. “Remember what I paid you for my potion?”
“A quarter.” he said, turning back to me as he fingered the wood, “You can buy the stick of wood for a quarter too. Soon I’ll have a whole dollar.”
“Are you saving up for something?” I said, searching my pockets for coins.
“Yes. Something special. But I don’t know what it is yet.” He added candidly.

I laughed and gave him two quarters. “Well, I will contribute fifty cents to your dream. I’ll buy one magic purple potion and the stick of wood.”
He took the quarters and began clinking them together in his hand. I gathered my prizes from the box.
“What do you say?” his Mom said, touching his shoulder to get his attention.
“Thank you.” he said automatically, his focus still on the quarters in his hand.

I walked home, considering why I had chosen the deep hole in the ground filled with purple water and not the potion that could make me fly. Partly because of the color, I decided, but I also liked the idea of a magic purple well, like a well of dreams or memories I could draw upon in my writing. I thought about the little boy and imagined how it might feel again to believe one could create a magic potion.

So my question for you is, if you could make a magic potion, what would your potion be like, and what would it do? Feel free to respond, I’m really curious!