TARDIS and flowers on a shoulder blade

The box was still there this morning, moored in the cut below Stanley Lock as if it had always belonged to the towpath. Its blue paint had gone soft at the corners, the sign across the top still read POLICE BOX in faded white letters, and a little lamp on the roof glowed as though nobody had thought to switch it off. Mr Abara from the wide beam swears it arrived in the night without a tug or a rope in sight, and I haven't the heart to tell him I half believe him.

Someone had planted the bank around it. Orange marigolds nodded at the water in a fat, ruffled heap, and the purple flowers by the gate had opened wider than I've ever seen them. Pink bells hung from the hawthorn on long bent stems, dropping their heads over the roof as if listening for something inside. Mum would have called it a shrine, and she would have been cross with herself for saying it.

I knocked, and nobody answered, so I pushed the door. It opened onto a room far too large for the outside, smelling of hot dust and wet wool, with a kettle still warm on a hook and a pencilled map of the Trent pinned to the wall. The locks on it had dates beside them, and the dates were all next spring. I didn't touch anything. I took one marigold from the bank, left it on the step, and walked back along the towpath before the lamp could make up its mind.

I'm posting this with the Thursday bag because I don't know if the box will still be here when you come up at Easter. If it isn't, look for a jar of flowers on the lock side and know that I left the light on for you.