Flitting Wisps

I love stories.

I love outlandish stories, ones filled with magic, fancy swordplay and maybe a dash of emotional searching (angst, lol).

People, no, geniuses like Mercedes Lackey and R.A. Salvatore and Simon R. Greene and Garth Nix and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and so many more, offer windows and portals, insights to many other worlds and wonders. I thank you, and always will love your works of carefully chosen and arranged words.

Call me childish. Call me a dreamer. Call me an escapist, or immature. If that is what you call that I experience while immersed in these pages, then so be it. I'll admit it, even wear those labels proudly upon my chest as to me they aren't labels but rather, badges of honor! and I pity those who laugh snidely and belittle this genre that these books belong in.

Fantasy.

It sounds whimsical and immature. But where would we be, if dreamers did not dream, where would visionaries come from?

So I read and rejoice in such works. Elves, dragons, spells, scimitars, and adventures. All but a flip of a page away. Sometimes when reality is too harsh, when hopes are broken, or when the passage of silent time is too tedious, this is my drug. This is my vice, if it could even be called that. This is my escape.

...and sometimes, I am a little reluctant to return.

And after spending quite a significant amount of time and dreams in such worlds and realms, I can't help but to think of other possibilities that might be. Could there be another ending to this tragedy? Could there be another hidden tale beneath this hero's recounting? Could there be another...?

Such thoughts come to me, like flitting hummingbirds made of morning mist. Images accompany them, with possible stories to tell. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so to me, it's a matter of finding the right words to paint the picture any way I like. I can paint it a cheerful pink, a gloomy purple, an outrageous neon orange or a simple yet mysterious blue.

Yet as these short bursts of trance-like ideas fill me, they evaporate just as fast, like roiling steam from a warm cup of coffee. I try to cling on to those I think is interesting, those that I might spin further, those that might be ...more.

I'm tempted to keep a small Thought Notebook. To scribble down and hold fast to such random rays.

And maybe, one day, might these little seeds be allowed to flower.