Tag Archives: Magic

Clara’s world … the sky sucks

Musings, Poetry, , , , ,

© 2026 John Healy
Draft 7-28-2026

Epigraph

Whether good or evil, something wicked has come to stay, changing the face of night and day.

Teaser

Introducing Clara’s world

Chapter 1

The sky sucks
(the glittering cage)
(celestial obscura)

“The sky sucks!” – an earworm hissed.

As the swing lifted her toward the sky, Clara smiled, “Oh, Grandpa … your chant’s like a spell over me. How your face glowed when you spoke of the way it used to be. Is your spirit in the sky? Or does it linger nearby?“

She came back to earth; pulled out an antique telescope from her backpack; then cradled it on her lap. She liked to point it toward tiny gaps in the industrialized sky, searching for real stars beyond the mosaic ceiling of orbiting debris. Sometimes to identify dots on one of Grandpa’s charts, picture mythic figures in the cosmic sea.

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Breaking magic, breaking wonderland

Mediation, Musings, , , , , , , ,   1 comment  

Magic can be a wonderful thing. In stories. Such as those set in the fictional country called Wonderland. In the 2013-2014 ABC TV series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, there were three rules of magic [1].

You cannot:

  1. Raise (bring back) the dead
  2. Force someone to love you (make somebody fall in love)
  3. Change the past

But, of course, for fabulists and despots, rules get in the way. Even rules of magic [2]. Let alone the rule of law (or laws of logic & physics). Their desires seek to bend reality. To bring back deprecated tyranical notions, like zombies. To compel us to not believe what we see with our own eyes. And to forget history.

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