Toe in the Water

Discovered Worlds

Discovered Worlds

What can you do when the entrance to another world really is in the back of a wardrobe? I mean, the parallels are obvious and people are bound to assume you’re being derivative. Do you have to go to the length of inventing a fictitious portal to the other world?

But why should you have to lie? If it’s the truth, it’s the truth. And imagine if you invent something and then someone points out that what you’ve proposed is impossible for some reason you hadn’t thought of. It’s too late then to grin sheepishly, admit that wasn’t what really happened and then expect them to believe the wardrobe story. You can see how that book really has us painted into a corner. From now on we’re only going to discover worlds that aren’t reached through a wardrobe.

Which is going to be what we Brits call a bit of a bugger if we do discover one in that way. Are we just going to let that one go in the hope that we’ll stumble into yet another world tomorrow? That could be a real letdown if we never do. We could spend a lifetime biting our tongues because the only new world we’d discovered happened to be through the back of a wardrobe.

The reason I bring up this subject is because I recently fell into a new world through the back of a wardrobe. And that was just the beginning of my problem. Once I’d entered, it became apparent that I’d landed in a very marshy area where the people lived in tents. And then, oh cursed inconvenience, the inhabitants turn out to be so similar to marshwiggles that everyone will assume that I copied them. It was too much to overcome. I turned around and left the discovered world without even greeting my first marshwiggle.

Clearly, I’m going to have to give up looking in wardrobes.

Word Count: 319