but paper and ink have conjuring abilities of their own. arrangements of lines and shapes, of letters and words on a series of pages make a world we can dwell and travel in.
What if she stepped on a needle and it went right into her foot and Roberta would not feel it and the needle would rise and rise and rise through the veins leading up to the heart and then the needle would STAB HER IN THE HEART and Roberta would DIE and it would be VERY PAINFUL this according to nurse mother a medical expert on Freaky Ways to Croak... The mother shouted that she knew several people who died from the Rising Stab of the Unfelt Needle or RSUN she has seen cases of it many times and not ONE PERSON HAS SURVIVED IT.
This ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience. And I suppose in some way it is a kind of resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults believe children forget trauma.
We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable.