DAY FIVE

Even in my first life…that one that ended all those years ago on that porch…even back then I was always intrigued by fantasy. Myth, science fiction and fairy stories all provided a vehicle to describe the indescribable parts of life.

It was Clyde that once told me that “we do not retreat from reality, we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves... By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly."

Certainly for some, fantasy is an escape and God knows we all need to escape sometimes from the stifling reality of the sweatbox we call the daily grind. But much more than just mere escape or a child’s daydreams, well thought out fantasy allows you to pass through a wardrobe or a picture or travel in a rocket ship into another world and by interacting in that strange or bizarre environment see and understand our own world that much more clearly.

But even beyond that, fantasy gives voice to the reality which lingers just beyond our vision…the reality that we all knew as children that the world was much bigger and more awesome, in the true sense of the word, then most of us are able to recall when we get older. In that sense, fantasy has the power to awaken within us, if only for brief time, the sense of wonder that sometimes finds itself buried beneath the burdens of adulthood.

“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.” (Patricia to Joe aboard the TweedleDee in Joe Versus the Volcano)

`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'

@ 2010 Joseph Ricciardi Jr