The Illustrated Encyclopedia of an Imaginary Universe

Resolution. It isn’t necessarily one of my strong suits. I’m far more prone to flights of fancy than the average person. But, when I do resolve myself to a certain task, even if I try to shun it, it comes around again and again, knocking and demanding entrance.

It seems as if we continually involve ourselves with our infinitely sad and obtrusive hopes. All of our aspirations and dreams of the perfect home, the perfect job, the perfect companion, the perfect group of friends… it’s all ridiculous. I can, and sometimes do, day dream myself silly over the possibilities of living in a new city. An entire plan, hatched out of impetuousness, of starting my life over from scratch was enticing and exhilarating.

But what allowances are there for such follies? How gracious can fate be if one’s occupation is listed as ‘Bridge Burner’?

It’s a tiring and useless argument, redundant and circular in the worst way. The lunatic can’t proscribe mental medicine to lost souls and the atheist has no business involving himself in religion. But I’m the crazy jester who likes to keep his arms and feet on every colored circle, fingers in all the pies, and expects all the roads to lead to somewhere interesting.

It isn’t too much to ask, I shouldn’t wonder, for people to stop being ridiculous for a moment and take an honest look around, at their lives and at themselves, with an unbiased eye. But maybe it is. When I see giggling girls in convertible cars, when I see clean-cut young men in suits looking older than they should, when I see someone pitching a fit because of something that’s so obscenely petty that if a moment of clarity were to strike in mid-tantrum, the only response would be near-suicidal embarrassment.

What the hell. We’re only here for a short period of time. We might as well be as stupid and extreme as we can. Or at least that seems to be every one’s attitude. I might as well join suit, cash in my chips, and join the human race.

But I just can’t bring myself to turn in my curled shoes with the bells on the toes and this silly hat that isn’t really funny but it remains part of the uniform anyway. I may be a jester, I may be a fool, but there’s one thing none of these other cats will ever have: the ear of the King into which I may whisper the bold and naked truth.

Not that I know what that is.