Monday, March 21, 2016

Lucid Myths, an Underfable



          Lucid Myths

          Once upon a time the Easter Bunny stood up and addressed the Lucid Myths support group. The Bunny said, “Hi! I’m the Easter Bunny, and I don’t exist!”
          The others said “Hi!”
          The Easter Bunny said, “When I found out that I’m imaginary, I was devastated. I, an illusion? I thought I was a nature spirit! Almost a god! But really I’m a fictional character? How depressing!”
          The Tooth Fairy said, “Hey, I’ve been there!”
          The Easter Bunny said, “But eventually I learned how to cope. For I am shy by nature; nonexistence suits me. What can hurt what isn’t there? I call it the Emily Dickinson Defense; I’m nobody too!”
          “That’s a good defense,” said Santa. “But there’s more. You do seem to exist awhile, right? To the children? And then you stop?”
          “Well, yes, they outgrow me. It’s so sad…”
          “Why be sad?” said the Tooth Fairy. “They’re supposed to outgrow you! Be glad you’re part of the childhood initiation ritual!”
          The Easter Bunny said, “Initiation? Into what?”
          The Tooth Fairy said, “Skepticism!”
          Santa said, “Oh, ho ho, didn’t you know? That’s what we’re for!”
          The Tooth Fairy said, “We’re a kind of vaccine against gullibility. A warning to the kiddies; don’t believe everything you hear.”
          Santa said, “In the very act of vanishing, we give them our most generous gift of all: sales resistance!”
          The Easter Bunny said, “So are we sacrifices? Jokes? Symbols of absurdity? Instructive failures? Traitors to the gods?”
          Santa said, “A little bit of each, actually. We replicate from mind to mind not by belief, but by disillusionment.
          The Tooth Fairy said, “We don’t need to exist!”
          “I see,” said the Easter Bunny. “Then… I don’t have to hide...”
          The Bunny wept, and Santa cried, “Group hug!”

          Moral: At worst, you can serve as a bad example.

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