The first time I read a fantasy novel, I devoured the pages and got lost in possibilities. My reality faded away every time I opened the book. The desire to live in an impossible world, where the imagination creates the rules instead of natural laws, proved powerful and has stayed with me.
From Madeline L'Engle when I was young, to Marion Zimmer Bradley and
J.R.R.Tolkien, I find myself entranced when writers push the limits of what could be. I want to escape to a world different from my own, yet one that resounds
with the painful truths and piercing beauty of reality.
What's your favorite world?
Do monsters make loud music all through the night?
Do precious things grow too bright and cherished?
Perhaps Kings rule, priestesses weave, merlins cast, or dark
nocturnal creatures feast on blood.
Or maybe the world looks real, and sounds and smells as expected,
but the ground turns transparent and another dimension is
revealed.
And what about time?
The words hang in the air; they reveal an unexpected future.
No magic can reverse them. They will remain
there, the marker of your altered existence.
Still, I can wander down a hallway lined with doors,
each different in carving and molding, each leading to a different
day.
Yesterday, vivid with emotion or one peculiar detail;
tomorrow, real through desire, a mist beyond my fingertips.
