A pre-schooler discovers an alternate reality...or so he thinks
I had no idea what to expect.
Only that in a few short moments, my mother and I would stop rifling through these racks of brightly colored dresses and head off to a movie theatre - an environment I had yet to investigate.
We left he store and entred the theatre. I felt both suffocated and comforted by the daunting-soothing darkness. The film rolled. Great swathes of color danced funnily before me, in time, music and logic that soon formed a story - the tale of Snow White and her seven dwarves.
I began to wonder whether this was a glimpse into a viable alternate reality, one my parents simply hadn't informed me of yet; that there were other kinds of people, fun-loving cherubs with rosy noses, who lived somewhere on the same planet as I, only on some outer edge.
When the Wicked Queen converted herself into a decrepit old crone, I knew, somehow, that I had been mistaken; that such a world was not possible, that whatever I was seeing was something that existed entirely for its own sake; not a reflection of a real world but something that enhanced reality, something that we all, for whatever reasons, needed periodically, with the same sense of need that Snow White had for the love and support of the dwarves or for the magic kiss of the prince.
We emerged into the sunlight, and I realized that the rules of the world from which I had taken temporary leave by way of this adventure remained firmly in place.
I was sorry that I would not be able to go off and play among dwarves, but happy, too, as I nestled my little hand against my mother's, that I lived in a world without witches.
