What do you get when you combine goblins, cats and an ancient portal to the mind?
The Children Lied
by Jordan J Hall
The children lied. They lied about everything. They lied right to my face, so eventually, I lied right back. All I had to do was verify the school’s name before letting them in, but instead I counted their heads with dollar signs in my eyes. Their musk was palpable, but I wrote it off as a kid-tastrophy. Alas, those tykes were not even tykes. They barely fit in their faces. All of them stuffed into some sort of skin sack, all of them scratching as they crowded into the screening room. I should have seen it. I did see it; I just looked the other way.
I like to pretend I don’t know why they chose us, but that’s not true. I know why they moved in so quickly. They saw our trust from a mile away. The goblins felt the beauty of our building, our portal. There is magic in theaters, they open a hole to another place. They press frequencies into naysayers expanding the notions of consciousness. These places are rife with story, with belief and the suspension of reality. These are the arenas of the mind. They are aged and they are withering, but they are here. The old stages will forever retain the fancy of what was birthed there. It must be why the goblin horde came. That, and they know we were susceptible to inquiry, to finances. They knew we would trust them, so they planned to take our magic.
Impervious to our assaults, the Grand Hall appears unbreachable at this time. We do not know their true numbers. Somehow, they are multiplying. The briefcases they brought with them are akin to portholes. Or duplicators. Or maybe they were each hiding a few friends in there. Before they ripped out the security cameras, we could see the seating was at least triple capacity and growing. Every inch crawled with their mangled likeness. Top to bottom, literally, they have the place on lock down. Wet hair has never smelled so bad. Hot breath of theirs loiters in the alcoves, infesting the carpet and drapery with sin. And to think, I gave them all that licorice for free...
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