The Bridge in the Bayou

The name of the state changes from place to place.  There's a spectrum...no, strike that, there's a million spectrums, but the one that matters in this story is from what's real, to what isn't.  I know you'd like to think that your world is the most real that there is....it isn't.  There are more boring worlds, more ordered ones where there is no magic at all.

Think your world is boring? Imagine a world without rainbows or the wonder of a child's laugh.  There are worlds where that illusion you can tell yourself that there is a hidden power behind your life guiding you to destiny simply doesn't even have that much room. 

T.C. Ricks was born in your world, but he didn't stay there.  He was kidnapped at the age of eight and taken after stumbling into a Bridge, the famous Bridge of the Bayou.

In my world, like I said, stories are real things, that most folks don't acknowledge are real, but everyone knows are.  Your world is an awesome place, because you're safe.  What supernatural things there are hide in the shadows because they have to.  It helps you have more wonder and appreciation for stories than you could ever have if something came out and ate you with scales and fangs and claws that doesn't appear on National Geographic.

I know you disagree.  But I've lived in both worlds? Some of you can claim that, but most can't.  To travel to another world, you have to have a way to get there.  Some are physical, like a portal or a sled or a closet or a blue box....but most are mental.  Astral projection is a time honored method of moving from one world to another.  Hell, it happens every time you open a book.  What? You thought books were safe? Of course they're not safe.  Every time you open one, part of you goes to another place...and part of that place comes back with you.

But there are almost no physical portals in your world.  T.C. stumbled into one by accident.  There he was in Wonderbreadland.  That's the best name for it.  A very ordered place that seems mystical but isn't.  Everything is so safe, predetermined and ordered that you wouldn't know real magic if it went and bit you on the face.  T.C. got out, which is good for him, but it left him a little funny in the head.

Dreams are important things, a part of your soul.  You have multiple parts.  But different dead parts do different things to different people.  Some people lose their heart's....they're just....they have no kindness in them.  Least n unless they are kin, and really, that's just a kind of self interest.  True empathy requires heart, and some folks have none. 

Dead dreams are truly sad.  You can see a kind of shuffling that goes on in their lives.  But there is only so much broken heart a person can take.

The Bridge is kind of like one of your Mystery Spots, well known and the most obvious proof to anyone not an idiot that there are physical ways out of the world, it pulls back and forth like the tides on the moon.  Sometimes, when the stars are just right, it shoots straight on past your world and into Wonderbreadland.  That's where they came, and cut a hole in the bridge and stole T.C. 

Let me tell you....magic can kill, just by knowing it exists.  To touch it for so long but not be able to taste it is one of the saddest things you can imagine. 

It's an interesting thing, the Bridge, there among the misty swamps. I study it, sometimes warn folks away from it.  I'll charge a nickle when I can, but an empty window can be an opportunity.  It lets me peep into your rather interesting world and see an index of all the places the Bridge might go.