In the large table at the center of the room, there is a secret drawer. A small drawer resting on two wooden rails, not on a sliding track, and it’s secret because it’s located right in the center of the table — the belly of the tabletop where we work.

This table wasn’t bought new. It came to the clinic naturally, as good and sturdy furniture tends to do when it refuses to wear out. I discovered the drawer only a few days after the table was placed in the room. An unexpected surprise I never asked for.

One child noticed it faster than I did myself. He wondered aloud: “How can it exist and be completely empty?” And I, in a very unplanned response, said, “This is the fairy’s drawer. Sometimes she leaves all kinds of things here, maybe next time will be one of those times — who knows.”

He chuckled, didn’t believe me, but still, I felt the emptiness and the way it reflected in his face hurt.

And since then, the drawer really has been leaving him something every week. Sometimes a note with a small drawing or a word (even just “Hey!” with a funny face is enough). Sometimes an object or a part of something that used to be something else, sometimes a tool like a screwdriver or scissors. Sometimes lots of little scattered things that are a bit hard to gather.

Sometimes the end of a thread. A real thread end. Or a button, a fine dust crumb, or a single bead. Sometimes you have to really look closely to see that, yes — there is something there.

Once, it even left him a soap bubble, or actually a delicate soap dome, cracked at the bottom of the drawer, just waiting for him to come and pop it with his little finger. And laugh. Who puts a soap bubble in a drawer?! Only fairies can do that. Just to be sure.

In many cases — neither of us really knows what’s actually there, or what it was, or what it was originally used for. Honestly, we’re not that interested. We’re more intrigued by the material it’s made of, its potential, what it can become, what part of something it might be.

Some things stay in the drawer without any attention after they come into the light, and disappear the following week as if they were never there. Some things are adopted immediately or receive recognition and enthusiasm — after all, that’s exactly what we needed to finish something we started! How did she know…

This drawer can only hold small and simple things, and even so — the drawer fairy is small and cannot carry heavy or bulky objects in flight. For these things, it doesn’t really matter if what came from the drawer goes outside or not, if it gets used, if it receives enthusiasm. They are there — that’s it, they might help or not. They don’t really take themselves seriously — after all, they are small and ordinary. They’re just there.

Children, even the little ones, know there’s no Tooth Fairy — it’s just their slightly naïve parents who take the tooth and leave a gift in exchange (but the parents get so excited about it, so why ruin the trick? Let them enjoy it).

There’s no Elijah the Prophet coming to drink wine, the magician at the birthday party bought all his tricks on Amazon, and if you don’t believe it — you can google “telekinesis” and learn the whole story yourself.

And yet — they close their eyes so tight when the birthday candle’s flame flickers on their little faces, waiting for their breath to blow the fire away far, far off and send their wishes to a place where they’ll be cared for and made true.

Maybe they’re already such smart and knowledgeable kids, maybe life’s reality has slapped them more than once or twice, maybe they’re even a bit rough around the edges, cynical despite themselves, and with all the experience they’ve gained.

Still, at their core, they remain, just in case, believers.

Holding in their hearts and still reaching for the soft and babyish edges of this blanket — which has no logic or reality but holds hope, magic, the scent of milk in a toothless mouth, wishes coming true, someone who hears, understands, and fulfills even though nothing was said, and maybe they’ve never even met him.

They know it’s a game and that really — we’re just fooling around here a little, that it can’t be real, and if someone from outside saw what we’re dealing with, they’d probably think it’s silly (or at least — not cool).

And yet — we insist on our right to play, speak our language, keep our rituals that gradually don’t need many words, because everyone already knows their role so our inner logic can continue to exist.

We leave the drawer fairy a small opening in the window, so that as long as we’re here — she can keep coming, managing this movement of leaving her treasures, giving them up forever, or returning to gather them back to where they came from, back and forth, again and again.

This drawer has no rails or locking mechanism holding it at the edges, and it falls and detaches from the table every time it’s opened (then it takes a very long time to put it back, and it requires four hands). And yet, it’s the most secret and most guarded place in the room.

In this narrow and strange drawer, which I really don’t know who designed it this way or why, which I never imagined could ever have a use or that someone would be interested in it or even discover it — this drawer can hold the whole world, and a whole world can come out of it.

If it exists.