The Bright-Eyed Sinner's Sanctum

Good Morning, Evening, and Blackest Night! May I suggest participating in the ancient and sacred game of Pretend? Today, find some strangeness to participate in that will bring you joy, and think nothing of anyone’s eyes but your own.

Just do the thing, friends! Wear cat ears! Wear elf ears! Wear frog ears, whatever that means! Become a Priest of the Holy Lemon, may her reign be ever sour! Talk to the alien bird-dog that lives in your bottom drawer and eats compliments!- aww, isn’t he cute?

“Why?,” I hear you ask. “Why should I? Why would I want to? What is the point?” Because the world around us is entrenched in the war between A Harsh and Unchosen Reality and a Shiny Distracting Advertising Nightmare- but while you forgot Pretend, it still remembers you? The piskies are still robbing the cookie jar. They never left. The water still remembers how to make rainbows, if only you would walk through them.

Think about it. Really think. When did cardboard stop being gold? Why doesn’t a star-flecked scarf make you a wizard? Who told you that there are no unicorns on Mars? And when did you start putting all of your belief into Big Things, like Wars and Hate and Fear and Dread Paperwork? When did you abandon the small? And don’t you want to go back?

But we are here. The storytellers, the mad mages and triumphant heroes, the things under your bed, the small and fearsome childhood gods- the Man in Red, the Pearly Keeper, Spring Court’s Fool, the Grove-hidden- we are here! We only ever hoped you would still believe in us, after all that you’ve done, after all that’s happened to you. But children so quickly fall into the Real World, and no-one remembers us there. Come on, then- Pretend is waiting. We’ll wait forever if we must– but first, one question.

Don’t you think there are dragons in those hills?