Dear Greer Larson Savage: My future seems uncertain. I’m scared, I’m afraid. I don’t feel safe on the streets. I hate everything and I don’t know what I hate. I’m angry. I’m worried I may have the flesh-eating disease but I’m not yet showing symptoms. People don’t return my phone calls. Should I buy a gun?
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Consider this: A few weeks ago I found myself in a section of the city that had become barren of faeries. And by barren of faeries, obviously I mean there were no trees in the area, no gardens, no flowers. Because, well, where do faeries live but near vegetation? But here there was only broken glass and litter. I came across a young mother. She was very young, couldn’t have been older than seven. And the baby she was dragging along struck me as neglected. Its hair was dry and matted, with spots where it had been pulled away at the roots, the face was dirty, and the little thing needed cuddling. Badly. Its eyes didn’t move! Already defenses had been set up in the child to the extent that the skin seemed almost plastic.
At first I thought, “Motherless mother, see no more the wasteland. Set thine eyes upon rosier cakes. Please! Forgive the unready for they know not what they bring about.” But the function of thought is to guide action, as we all know, so I bent down, because the young mother was rather short and I’m what they call taller, and I said to her, “You know you’re raising an ax murderer there, don’t you?”
But these are only constructs. Truth reveals itself in glimpses. Because this world isn’t real. It can’t be. There are just too many yahoos loose!
