Fiction: Escape or Excuse?
Wearing the Cloak
Since I was in diapers, my mother made it abundantly clear how important fiction was to her. She instilled my love of reading, and by extension my love of writing; she introduced me to books like The Hobbit and films like Star Wars: A New Hope; she indulged my passion for video games and comics, even if she didn’t dabble in them herself. I wrapped myself in a cloak made of patches from fictional worlds of every stripe. It kept me warm. Safe. Comfortable.
As I grew, so did the cloak, with new patches added almost constantly — some by my mom, some by my friends, some by yours truly. Jurassic Park, which sparked a years-long interest in paleontology. Dark Souls, whose wildly expansive lore captivated and enriched my imagination. Mistborn, which conveyed just how slim the line between fantasy and reality can be, no matter how intricate the magic system is.
The best part was knowing that I wasn’t the only one proud of his cloak; Pokémon lunchboxes and Power Rangers flip folders at school attested to that much. I could go to a friend’s house and play Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, then come home and stage mock battles with my sister using dinosaur toys. To say the absolute least, my first Comic-Con was a dream come true: a wonderland of cloak-wearers (this time literally) from all over the world.
