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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