Once upon a time, a girl - well actually a young woman - wandered into a world of fantasy, where reality was frowned upon, and those who would acknowledge that any such world existed beyond the realm that lies just beyond this fantastical existence they revelled in was shunned.
Work woes, the plight of what the political landscape inflicted upon the masses, trauma from past pains and problems, health or marital strife, none were allowed to breach the border - not in thought or in words - lest the fragile bubble of the imaginary utopia be popped and then the inhabitants would have to slip and lose their masks of pleasure and play and how terrible that would be and feel - though feelings were one of those real things that crept in so rarely, perhaps they too should be left outside, taken off and discarded like a pair of shoes in a home that requested bare feet over filthy soles.
Years passed - the woman grew older, because time goes on, no matter which realm one inhabits - and the cycle continued. The population's yearning for the loss of reality grew and grew, beyond any she had seen before - where it had been frowned upon during her first visits, now it was completely prohibited - connections were limited to the shallowest of forms. People she met one day, were either gone or dismissive of another meeting - from a lake, to a pond, to a puddle - the depths that could be plunged grew shallower and shallower and from optimistic, to realistic, to complete cynicism the woman went.
Those she met and managed to continue meeting, through sheer force of will, would make her tingle with the memory of hope, or the lingering twitch of possibility, only to fall away into the pool of "ah, yes, fantasy" until she became the one who no longer attempted to connect. Until her interactions slipped into teaspoon depths instead of that of a paddling pool.
