The World Was Made

They say that ages ago, before the world was made, before the people walked and ran and danced upon the earth, Maple stood by herself on the bare earth.  There was nothing by her, there was no one anywhere, and all she could do was just stand there, for there was no where to go and no one to know and no thing to see.

Tired of her isolation, she reached into her branches and broke off a bud and held it tightly in her hands until it formed hard and smooth.  She took a leaf and wrapped it around the top and she blew on it to dry it and make a cap.  She then took the acorn and pressed it gently into the ground not far away.  

Time went on, and soon Oak sprang from where the acorn had been placed.

Brother Oak, Maple had said, it is good that you have come to join me.  For I have been alone and now have a brother.

Sister Maple, said Oak who recognized Maple, I am glad to join you. But why are there no others?

Maple told him, There have never been any others. I have been alone. Now I have a brother and my brother has me. Is this not enough?

Oak pondered. No it is not enough. It is good, but it is not enough.

What then? Maple asked him.

There should be things on the ground, Oak told her. More like us. And some should also walk from place to place and some should dig into the earth.

Yes, said Maple. And there should be things in the sky as well. Creatures that soar and take rest in our branches and creatures that hover and dart between us.

Oak agreed with his sister, but he wondered how this could be.  The sun shines and all day, and nothing keeps the sky in place.

Maple worried about this and told him, Nothing holds the earth in place either.  If you could hold the earth in place, I could hold the sky in place.

So Oak took many of his leaves, tore them up and threw them into the air.  They scattered and came to rest on the ground, where they sprang up plants and grasses and flowers to hold the earth in place.

Satisfied that the ground would stay, Maple reached her arms to the sky and molded the air into giants.

Giants of air, she told the giants, you must hold the sky in place.  You must reprimand the sun when it is too hot and you must bring the oceans to the earth when it is too dry.

And the giants held the sky and the grasses held the ground.

And Maple threw her seeds to the winds where they grew wings of feathers to soar through the sky and wings of glass to dart between the trees.  And Oak dropped his seeds to the ground where they grew legs to walk from place to place and claws to dig into the earth.

And from these all creatures great and small and all plants of every color grew and were born.

The Poet's Diary

7:00 am: Woke up. Brushed teeth, shaved.

7:05 am: Fell back asleep.

8:14 am: Woke up. Showered, put on bathrobe. Went downstairs. Brewed coffee. Waited.

8:29 am: Poured coffee, sat down in chair on the porch.  Watched the birds.

8:34 am: Saw a cardinal. Bright red, bigger than some of the others.  It's a very lovely color.

8:35 am: Realized that 'cardinal' both describes the bird and the color. Wondered for a while which terminology came first.  Both seem equally likely.  The vivid hue would be the perfect way to describe the bird, despite the females not sharing it.  But the bird would also be the perfect way to describe the color, since nature makes it almost unique to the bird.  An interesting question indeed.

8:38 am: Prominent bishops in the Catholic church are also called Cardinals.  This is getting confusing.

8:40 am: A gold finch flew by.  I don't see many of those out here any more.

8:45 am: Cardinal can also refer to directions and numbers. Threw coffee mug at bird in frustration.

8:46 am: Went inside to get more coffee in a different mug.  Made note to buy another.

8:50 am: Got dressed in comfortable working clothes. Dark to hide ink stains.

9:00 am: Sat down to write first poem of the day.

9:30 am: The paper is blank. Can't stop thinking about cardinal.

9:33 am: Found cardinal in dictionary.  "of prime importance; chief; principle." That doesn't help at all.

10:03 am: Gave up on both poem and cardinal.  Needed inspiration.  Put on hat and jacket, walked to library.

10:44 am: Found book by Billy Collins. Good poet. Writes very naturally.

11:30 am: Read entire book.  Very short.  Very depressing.  Not used to Collins being so sad, not that you could often describe him as happy.  Still can't think of poem.

11:40 am: Went for walk to be inspired or to clear my head.  Honestly, either works.

11:45 am: Saw a cardinal. Now they're just mocking me.

12:15 pm: Stopped at a cafe for a scone and some black tea. The poet's natural habitat.

12:22 pm: Inspiration strikes.  Wrote poem.  Page and a half long.  Kept writing and writing.

12:24 pm: Put away notebook. Kept thinking about poem. Finished my scone.  Cinnamon Chip.  Delicious, but dry.

12:29 pm: Left cafe. Something nagging mind.

12:35 pm: Decided to have second look at poem.  Took out notebook.  It's bright red.  Contemplated.

12:37 pm: Decided it was not quite the right shade of red to be Cardinal.  Opened notebook.

12:40 pm: Read and reread poem.  Not so sure about it now.  Put notebook away.
12:44 pm: Headed home.
12:46 pm: Stopped at a pond on the way.  Admired its natural beauty. Thought about poem.

12:54 pm: Took out notebook again.

1:04 pm: I hate this poem.

1:05 pm: Tore out of notebook. Crumpled. Lit crumple on fire. Threw in pond. Headed home.

1:29 pm: Got home, sat down in front of paper.

1:30 pm: Previous poem was a masterpiece. What was I thinking.

1:34 pm: Tried to remember it and rewrite it.

1:46 pm: Wrote this instead.  

On Dreams

"I had a dream about you this morning," I told you as I peeled an orange carefully above the sink.

You raised your eyebrows at me over your tea.  "Did you? What sort of dream?"

"It was the sort of dream where you're half awake and half asleep and occasionally wake up during it only to fall asleep again and continue." I broke off a bit of the rind, sniffed it, and put it in my mouth to chew.  "You know that sort of dream, right?"

You smirked. "No, no no. I mean, what sort of dream nudge wink."

I spat the chewed rind into the sink and finished peeling the rest. "No, it was not that sort of dream." I put the peeled orange in a bowl and washed my hands.  "A one track mind, I tell you."

"Mm, that's a pity," you said, laughing softly as you took another long sip of tea.  "Well then, what was this dream about?"

"I don't recall," I said, and I moved around the counter to sit down next to you at the table.

"You don't recall?"

"No, I don't recall."

"Uh huh." You nodded abstractly.  "Well this has been an enlightening conversation and I am better for having it."

"Well, bits and pieces here and there." I pulled off a piece of the orange, ate it in one bite and wiped my hands on my pants.

"Go on," you urged.

"Well," I said after swallowing another piece.  "There's not much.  There might have been police.  Or a building, maybe a house? The color blue."

"You're right, that's not much."

"But I think I remember this bit with a photograph.  You were showing me this photograph, and I asked you who was in it.  And you said you were in it, but I couldn't see you, or really anyone in it.  Then you showed me another and said you were in it, but there were two people in it, and I couldn't figure out who either of them were, but I was too embarrassed to ask which was you." I put two more pieces of orange in my mouth and chewed them with more attention than I would have given them individually.

"I see," you said. "I wonder what it means."

"I dunno," I told you. "Been thinking about that.  Maybe it means that I really don't know a single thing about you."

You drained the rest of your tea, a sizable amount. "Ahh, everyone puts too much stock in dreams and their meanings. Don't think too much about that."

I looked at you, taking in your features.  "Well, you asked."

You looked at me, your eyes flashing into mine. "You love me, don't you?"

"W-well of course I do," I stammered.

You kissed my cheek. "Then that's all that matters, isn't it?" You stood up and put on your jacket. "I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah," I said, not sure what to feel.

"Hey, smile!" you told me.  "You could stop traffic with that smile, you know.  I'll see you tonight." And you walked out the door.

An Ode to a Computer

Hail to the computer!

Your screen, it shines night and day

A beacon of yellow and bluish light

That strains the eyes

And draws the mind

And tells us,

“I will never leave you,

And you should never leave me.”

O computer, of thee we sing!

We sing praises to your processor,

Dual-core and contained inside.

We raise toasts to your memory,

Only read and randomly accessed,

Without which we would be lost

And confused

And unable to play Starcraft

Or make spreadsheets.

We dance the foxtrot to your modem.

Computer, thy star shines bright!

Oh how we gaze upon your browser

That helps us explore the internet,

That chrome-colored opera of fire and foxes on safari

That leads us to greener pastures of

Electronic mail and electronic commerce

To tumble and stumble upon

Forums and Facebooks

Where the virtues of nettiquette are extolled

And then ignored.

Tell, O Muse, of the wonders of computer!

Without thee we could never do our work.

Without thee our work could finally get done.

Without thee how else would we watch Avengers

Without paying fourteen bucks in a smelly theater

I mean I'm not made of money and it made

Like a zillion dollars I mean come on

Who's gonna care if I just open up Pirate Bay

Or U Torrent for just a moment

Seriously dude how bad could it be.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm review

Much to my chagrin, it will likely be a while before I'm able to see The Dark Knight Rises. Theater tickets cost a lot of money these days, and with 3D – it is in 3D, isn't it? It has to be – a trip to the flicks is now a significant chunk out of my non-existent paycheck. So in the meantime, I've decided to catch up on some Batman films that I haven't seen. Earlier this week, I watched Batman: Year One, which wasn't half bad. And tonight, I decided that if I can't watch the Batman film that everybody is talking about, I can at least watch the Batman film that nobody is talking about.

Allow me to clarify: for better or for worse, there at least is an opinion on most Batman films. Adam West's Batman: The Movie is talked about all the time for how ridiculous and idiotic it is, a fact that the film itself almost seems to understand. Tim Burton's Batman is held in fairly high regard among most people I have heard, and Batman Returns has a great deal of mixed reviews. Batman and Robin is reviled for both its cheesy campiness and the fact that, unlike its 1960s predecessor, it does not realize how stupid it is. Even Batman Forever, though nowhere near as good as Burton's films or as expressly bad as Schumacher's followup, is at least brought up now and then as That Time Jim Carrey Wore Spandex. And of course Christopher Nolan's trilogy is nothing short of a pop cultural phenomenon, even if sometimes people seem to forget that there was a first film in the series.

But in 1993, hot off the success of the Animated Series and the disappointing returns from Batman Returns, there was another feature film release that is hardly mentioned at all – Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Part of the highly acclaimed Batman: the Animated Series, Mask of the Phantasm came out about a year after the launch of the series and fits in as part of the story. But the weird thing is that nobody ever seems to talk about it. I don't know if I have even ever met someone who has seen it, and basically every single one of my friends loves Batman. I had to find out about this on the internet, where the few people who mention it assure me it is quite good.

And the thing is, they're right. It is a really good Batman film. It both fits within the established mythos of the series (at the time. Later seasons would retcon some things.) and tells its own story well. Not only that, but unlike some film entries of existing series like Trigun: Badlands Rumble, the film has fairly high stakes. Sure, some of the most important characters are introduced in the movie and never seen outside of it, but their arcs are compelling and affect established characters in a way that makes sense.

For those who have not seen the film, there are two main stories that go on in it. The main story involves a mysterious hooded figure – the eponymous Phantasm, though as far as I noticed, nobody calls it this onscreen – who is systematically hunting down and killing mob bosses. These murders are blamed on Batman, which is not an unlikely leap, what what with the cape and the mask and the unmistakable influences from Gothic horror.

The second story involves a former love interest of Bruce Wayne's, a woman named Andrea Beaumont. And love interest is not a loose term here: we see her relationship with Bruce unfold quite seriously through a series of flashbacks. This story is actually very interesting, as it has an enormous effect on Bruce and raises answers to some pressing questions. Couldn't more good be accomplished by Bruce Wayne through donations to the police and charities? If so, why does he choose to become Batman instead? Where is the line drawn between vigilantism and vengeance and has Batman crossed it? It's an origin story that doesn't involve his technology or his childhood or his fear/fascination with bats, and it works because of it.

Other than these, the rest can be summed up by saying it's a part of the animated series. It succeeds best in its unique mesh of time periods and art styles. It can be somewhat camp and cartoony but still dark and interesting. The cast is fantastic, with some great (though short) parts with Wayne's butler Alfred and of course Mark Hamill's endlessly entertaining performance as The Joker. Furthermore, the scenes with the Phantasm evoke a wonderful classic monster movie feel, and significant development is given to the character and motivations of Bruce Wayne. Sure, it suffers some from its relatively short running time, and the climax perhaps leaves a bit to be desired and a lot unanswered. But in spite of these flaws, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm still is a great film, and easily belongs in the Top Five film adaptations of the Batman franchise ever made.

Review of Batman: Year One

I just finished watching the straight-to-DVD animated adaptation of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. It was pretty good. Granted, was certainly not the kind of film that could get a theatrical release. The pacing wasn't fantastic and the animation wasn't exactly studio quality. Additionally, at 64 minutes long, it isn't even as long as a Pokemon movie. But as a home release animated film, it worked quite well. It was certainly more interesting than some other comic book home releases like The Invincible Iron Man, which was surprisingly boring. And as far as Batman films go, it also was more coherent and engaging than Batman: Gotham Knight, the DVD release interquel between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

The film, for the uninitiated, follows both Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon as they come to Gotham City in order to fight crime: Gordon as an honest lieutenant in a precinct full of dirty cops, and Wayne as a vigilante who soon becomes the legendary Batman. Interestingly, the film spends a great deal of time more on Lt. Gordon, as he deals with corrupt cops, his superiors, troubles with his marriage, and a so-called giant bat that seems to be attacking people.

Honestly, I suspect that the film would have been done itself a favor if it had stuck with this idea and run with it. It told a very interesting story about Jim Gordon, and a Batman story completely from his view would be fantastic. Additionally, by dropping the few, unsatisfactory parts based around Wayne – as well as the late-coming and quickly forgotten arc about Catwoman – the film could have had more time to develop a few of its plot threads that seemed rushed.

That was one of the biggest problems with the film: the pacing. While the first half had a great deal of nicely done buildup, by the end it seemed like plot threads were rushed to completion – like the aftermath of Gordon's infidelity – or dropped altogether – like the origin of Catwoman. I understand that this is a direct adaptation of an existing story, but many of these parts feel awkwardly forced in.  Other problems revolved around the voice acting  In many cases, it was fine, but some acting, notably Bruce Wayne himself, fell rather flat.

The animation itself was a bit of a mixed bag, though perhaps not quite as literally mixed as Gotham Knight, which was a series of shorts produces by different directors and studios, creating the effect of switching halfway through an episode of Samurai Champloo to watch a little Death Note. Year One seems to take some of its cues from the current trend of Motion Comics, adapting a comic book or graphic novel by putting limited animation into the existing panels. However, it becomes clear that this is mostly to save money for the fight scenes. The fight scenes are stunningly animated, which can provide a bit of a jarring contrast to much of the rest of the film, which thankfully found a bit of a middle ground between the limited style of some scenes and the glossy production of others.

But all things considered, this was a fairly enjoyable film. The story was mostly solid, the animation had some great scenes, and the voice acting was fantastic with only a few exceptions. Fans of Batman Begins or Batman: The Animated Series would probably enjoy this – it certainly has a similar ring to it – and it could even change the minds of those who have found previous DVD releases to be somewhat lacking. It definitely wouldn't win over anyone who doesn't like Batman, of course. But let's be real here: those people are quite beyond help already.

Titles are the Hardest Part

People have known for a while how much writing is something I love, something I feel passionate about. But in truth, I haven't always had the drive to do it. It's difficult sometimes. Sometimes I just didn't feel like it. But I think the error in my thought process was this whole waiting for inspiration to strike. Because sometimes inspiration won't strike, and you just have to go and find it for yourself.

True, I'm still not finished with all of the projects I've been meaning to work on. I still am not much further than I was months ago on my second draft of Life, Love and the Fourth Wall, though admittedly I have changed the title. Clearly, calling it Life and Love Along the Fourth Wall counts as significant progress, wouldn't you agree? I'm still not certain that will be the final title though. Perhaps Life Along The Fourth Wall? Maybe something even more different.

A while back, I recalled hearing a commercial for National Public Radio that referred to NPR as being like “A little bit of tofu and a little chocolate cake.” I immediately thought that would make a great title for a play. I don't know why I thought that. I wasn't nearly as entrenched in reading and writing plays as I am now, and I had only just begun to really think about theatre seriously. But that has still stuck with me for all these years.  

Looking at it in print, it looks a bit long, but long play titles are nothing new. For instance: The Future is in Eggs or It Takes All Kinds To Make The World, or perhaps A Couple of White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, or the brilliant and ridiculous Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Those are definitely lengthy titles, and that's one of the things that I always liked about theatre. This way of not taking itself so seriously that it can't have ridiculous titles that would make a Fall Out Boy album shiver with envy.

So that will be something to think about. As will actually writing scene 2 for my play. And then revising the rest of it. And then probably transcribing the whole thing into a scriptwriting program for my third draft. And then seeing if anyone wants to produce it. Okay, so the journey is far from over. But writing each day, this is part of it. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as any Successory will be happy to tell you, and writing is no different. Except for being measured in miles or actually involving walking.

Sins and Stages

On Monday, I woke up without you. I showered, running the water a little bit because I remembered you didn’t like to go in unless it had warmed up enough. I made breakfast and set two places. I read all day, looking up every time I thought I heard someone pass the door. Dinner was for two, romantic, candle-lit, rigatoni in meat sauce with sauteed pea pods and an unopened bottle of 2005 Merlot. I went to bed and fell asleep waiting for you. I dreamed myself in your arms with nothing between us.

On Tuesday, I couldn’t stand the thought of you. I picked up all the pictures I had of us, stuffed them into a mason jar and lit the crumpled mess on fire. As it burned, I just kept thinking how much better off I was, how I never needed you. I told myself that you held me back and now that you were gone I could finally prove how great I was and how everybody loved me and you just prevented me from shining and them from getting closer to me. When the flames settled down, I picked up the jar of ashes and melted plastic and threw it at the television. I sat down and cried until I passed out.

On Wednesday, I tried to think of how to change things. How it could have been different. I wished I had your grace and your charm. I resented that you had been so good at everything and so good to me while I was awful and spiteful to you. I wondered if I might have been half the person you were, might I have been able to keep this from happening. And then I looked through all the things you left behind. I watched your movies, hoping something could take my mind off of this. I put your Nintendo up for sale online.

On Thursday, I didn’t get up at all. I hardly moved all day, not leaving the bed, looking up at the ceiling, wishing for the cold or the numbness of death. I didn’t care that I stained the pillows as I drank the rest of the Merlot by myself. I didn’t check to see if anyone bid because I didn’t really care if they had. I drifted in and out of sleep. The awful dreams weren’t enough to make me get up.

On Friday, I waited an acceptance that will never come.

My Favorite Book

I've had a number of favorite books over the course of my life. When I was very young, it was of course The Tawny, Scrawny Lion, a book I do not entirely recall, but whose naming fits with my brother's favorite book around the same age, The Saggy, Baggy Elephant. Growing up, I enjoyed books by Roald Dahl, especially The BFG, which hit that mixture of childhood whimsy and people dying brutally that really spoke to me as a child. This might have contributed to my discovery of Michael Crichton, whose books I read with great fervor through what most people would consider my middle school and early high school years. Not long after, I discovered the Ender Saga by Orson Scott Card, which despite controversy and declining quality surrounding Card's more recent work, gave me Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead as two of my favorite books of all time.

Throughout the years since, I discovered other books that really stuck with me. Books like Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien really resonated with me in high school, exposing me not only to fascinating narrative methods, but also to themes that I might have otherwise never accepted. In college, I have discovered an incredible love for poetry through the works of Langston Hughes and Billy Collins especially, both of whose unique styles I've sought to emulate and learn from. Additionally, books like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa, Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff, and Looking for Alaska by John Green have really rekindled my love for young adult literature.

But throughout all of this, I often forget about what has probably been my favorite book through it all, much like how I often forget that The Blues Brothers really is my favorite movie of all time. When I was around the age of Junior High – I don't recall exactly when – my trumpet instructor suggested I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. He said he thought it would fit with my sense of humor nicely, which was dry, sarcastic and silly as a sort of byproduct of growing up watching a lot of British films that often involved James Bond or the Monty Python troupe.

So I picked it up from a library, and I loved every line of it. I cannot remember finding anything so funny as the first time I read The Hitchhiker's Guide. It really remains an incredible book, a near-perfect blend of hard science fiction elements and mind-bending, absurd humor. Douglas Adams was the master of describing things in terms that are nearly impossible to visualize. A spaceship shaped like an Italian Bistro that can only be seen out of the corner of ones eye. A slender four that prances in the background of one scene. A cocktail that feels like getting bashed over the head with a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold brick. It's a masterpiece of both classic sci-fi writing and humorous literature at the same time.

The “Hitchhiker's Trilogy” of course contains a total of five books and a short story by Douglas Adams, as well as another novel named And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer. I haven't read this final one yet, apprehension prevents this for the moment. But I plan to after I reread the whole series, which I have just started again this week. Despite my uncertainty, I actually am looking forward to reading it. It would be nice to have an ending to the series that isn't the depressingly bleak Mostly Harmless.

But if you have not read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I cannot think of any excuse for not at least attempting. It's a difficult book, one that can hurt the brain at times, but it is also one of the funniest things ever written, and the series explores a number of interesting themes. It probably is my favorite book of all time, but this is, of course, always up for debate.

A Look at My Summer

This summer is the first time I've set a schedule for myself in regards to reading and writing. It's as true for music and sports as it is for writing that the only way to improve at something is to practice every day. Many of the best and most prolific writers, from writers that I love like Terry Pratchett to writers that I hate like Ernest Hemingway, got to their level of skill by writing every single day. Granted, not every great author wrote every day, but most of the ones that offer advice on how to become a better writer list that as the first step.

I always knew I had to do it, but I just never did. Unaccustomed as I have been to scheduling my own free time, I've generally written just whenever I felt like it, which is both a good way to ensure that nothing gets written and a great way to not get any better. So this summer, at the advice of my father and my brother (along with some words from Neil Gaiman bouncing around in my head), I decided to set up a regimen of sorts that both offers flexibility yet ensures that I will read and write every day.

Each morning, I read for at least one hour by 11:00 am. If I start too late to allow for an hour by 11:00, then I read for two hours. After I read, I write at least 400 words before using the computer for anything else.  I should state that this is a great way of ensuring that I will write, seeing as most of my favorite time wasters require computer use. Additionally, I update this blog Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I did miss this Friday, but I figure a one-day delay is not the end of the world. I also seek to send things out for publication weekly. This one is a bit harder to manage, seeing as I still get rather intimidated by the process. But it is something I can and will do, in spite of the anxiety.

Of further note is that July is Flash Fiction Month. A friend of mine told me about this. Similar to National Novel Writing Month, where participants attempt to write a fifty-thousand word novel during the month of November, Flash Fiction Month participants write a piece of Flash Fiction every day for the month of July. Flash Fiction, for those who don't know, is typically defined as a short short story that is under one thousand words. I've actually managed pretty well! It's an especially great way for me to practice writing Flash Fiction and prose fiction in general, which I have found difficult in the past. I won't write a masterpiece every day, but every bit of practice helps.

Writing is an acquired skill. I distinctly remember teaching myself to write eight years ago, and I will continue to teach myself to write for as long as I live. And the only way to really do this is to practice.

Every Day's the Fourth of July

Sometimes I wonder what people think of me as they pass by. I wonder what that little child with his ice cream pop thinks I am doing. I wonder what thoughts I cause in the people who speed swiftly down the street on bicycles, coupes, inline skates, what images I conjure in the minds of poets who might be strolling down the street, looking for a muse, a simple idea or picture or comment that might place one word firmly behind the next, and then more words following in a line or a stanza or a battalion of rhetorical soldiers.

Perhaps they look at me and see me at face value, just a frail old man sitting on a bench, jotting in a notebook while feeding pigeons on the sidewalk that leads into the entrance of the park. Perhaps they try to suppose my life story, my circumstances, maybe thinking my wife could have died years ago from terminal brain cancer, my children moved away to the corners of the world, the notebook filled with all the words I would have said to my wife, the pigeons filled with all the bread I would have given to my children.

I look at the pigeons, I look at the people, and I can't help but smile a bit. And I look down into my notebook, and my smile turns to a grin as I write the words I've been waiting my whole life to put down:

“Phase One Complete.”

“Delta Strike is Go.”

The Magic of Childhood

Like most people my age, my childhood ended when I found out Santa Claus was real.  I think it hit me harder than it hit most people I knew.  Maybe because I was the youngest of my friends.  I just wasn’t equipped to handle the harsh truth of Santa Claus and what that means.

It happened when I was six years old.  I woke up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to hear a loud clatter rising from the rooftop.  More sounds followed: my parents shuffling from their room, scraping from the chimney, a heavy thud from the fireplace, and the muffled tone of my mother and father talking.  You’re just dreaming, I told myself. Go back to sleep.  And I would have, but then I realized mother and father’s voices were accompanied by a third.  It was deep… almost downright jolly.  I knew right away that I had to investigate.

When I climbed downstairs I could hardly believe my eyes.  My own parents, who had for years told me that they bought me all of my presents every single year, stood helping an enormous man in a red suit unload a bag full of boxes. I wasn’t upset because mother and father had lied to me. Well, maybe a little bit, but for me, the hardest part was that I finally knew we didn't live in a world governed by observable laws.

I burst into tears, and the adults turned to look. My mother gasped, my father shook his head, and Santa looked away, as if he had seen this too many times.  Mother softly tried to comfort me, but the questions I kept asking just got harder and harder for her to answer.

I suppose I was being naïve to believe that matter could neither be created nor destroyed, or that the earth orbited the sun due to the sun's greater mass and gravitational pull. But when she told me that the stories were true, even all powerful genies and the chariot that towed the sun, I cried for hours. It was childish, sure, but I just wasn't ready to learn that I could save the life of a fairy just by believing in it enough, and if it touched me I could just think happy thoughts and fly through the stars and straight on until morning.

But again, I was only six years old. Mother made me swear not to tell my brothers about Jack Frost and wood nymphs until they were old enough to find out for themselves.  It’s for their own good, she’d told me. And she was probably right.  How could a three-year-old sleep if he knew about the boogeyman or alien abductions. These things are big, and children are impressionable. So you tell a kid that a rainbow is just an illusion created by refracted sunlight to keep him from searching for gold and getting mauled by a leprechaun.

When I have kids, I'm sure I'll take great lengths to hide the magic beans that grow stalks high above the clouds to the land of giants. But their questions won’t be easy. I don't know how I'll explain thunder without telling them about the angels going bowling or lightning without worrying them about Zeus or Thor striking them down at the slightest provocation. Life would just be simpler without them having to use mirrors to check around corners for basilisks or gorgons. I wish that could be the case.

I wonder if I could use this to my advantage. If I envisioned it hard enough, who knows? I could be able to create a new world for them. A new world where the things I believed in as a child were true - conversion and conservation of energy, a light speed that nothing could surpass, a recordable cause for every effect. Maybe, just maybe, somewhere there could be a universe where life finds a way to adapt and change and pass on traits in response to natural causes rather than the inscrutable whims of  jealous and petty gods.  Somewhere out there is a world that is billions of years old instead of a mere six thousand, in a universe that can be explored and known through careful study and reason.

Heh, listen to me, I must sound like a little kid with a storybook, don't I?  Sorry, I guess all that stuff is still pretty fantastical.  Wishful thinking.  I guess I get carried away with my imagination sometimes, just wishing that the world was a little less magical.