A Story I See.

I'm surrounded by psychos, weirdos, liars and hypocrites.

There are some people I can't stand, and you know what you are.

Nearly everyone has read or been read fairy tales. You know, where once upon a time lived a fair princess, oblivious to the world, perfect in her perfectness, adored and admired, celebrated and cherished, loved and lauded. Then something dark and dastardly happens to her, and alas, she is a damsel in distress, crying for rescue and for a handsome prince, who rides in on his shining unicorn or pegasus and does away with the evil witch and monster. He and the princess then ride off and live happily ever after. Sometimes there are dwarves or talking brooms or genies or birds or magical upholstery but basically that's the fairy tale.

Sometimes though, you see creatures of myth and fancy in real life. Sometimes one might be so fortunate as to meet something with two faces, or a monster disguised as something else. It may be something as harmless as a lopsided elf or a giggling midget, but sometimes it's not.

Stories, fairy tales, don't always end well. Neil Gaiman said somewhere in the Sandman that all stories end in sadness and loss eventually. Something like that. Sometimes you just come to that end alot quicker than you'd expect, sometimes when you think you're just at a new chapter, getting into the better parts of the story, you realise that the story is over.

But then you realise that there is never only one single story, one lone tale, one sole fable. Everyone is part of many different stories. Some might end prematurely, others might go on and you might never see that sorrowful end that is promised to us all. Which is good. But ultimately we're all characters in many plays. Life's a stage, but there's more than one show, and we are the cast, crew and audience. We have the ability to pick which stories we want to be part of the most, even if you've invested what you thought was a significant amount of time in another. Sometimes it's best to get out of a story, to close the book before you reach an end you don't want to see. Sometimes that book is closed for you.

Sometimes you need to step out of the book to rewrite it.

For now, I've taken a long, hard look at the books and stories and fairy tales that I've been involved with. I'm pretty happy with most of them, and some could use a little editting. Others have closed, for better or for worse, be it permanently or no.

In the end, that's all there is. Hoping to enjoy the stories we write and read and hear and feel and see and be a part of. Knowing when to stop. Learning when to start again. Realising it all.

Naz