I don’t have the best reputation with working. Or that's to say, it wasn't always bad. I’ve never had a capital J “job” but what work I have done has been tough. Especially with my ever so unstable mental health. Anxiety can make work impossible, or, at least, a million times worse.

You may have heard of dog shows, but its opposite exists as well; cat shows. During that show, cat owners bring their purebred cats to be judged along side other cats of the same breed. There are usually ten “rings” with ten cages where all the cats are rotated out to be judged. When a cat leaves a cage, a steward cleans it, and that's what I did.

Rewind to about September of last year, unsuspecting me was going to a cat show with my family. I thought it was going to be just another cat show; be bored and wash cages for seven hours each day and get fifty bucks. I was listening to a new song called “Star of the Show” on repeat. I was enjoying the circus-y atmosphere of it as we arrived at the show.

Everything was fine at first, but then I got sleepy. As I was nodding off there was a thought that kept lapping at my feet, I can't let anyone down. If I didn't get to the cage the clerk (the person who writes down and organize the judges results) would have to clean it. That's bad. It's bad it echoed, its bad its bad I can't let that happen it's bad. The thought that was lapping at my feet was now drowning me and I went into a delusional overdrive. Anxiety tends to do that.

Suddenly I was an acrobat in a circus who couldn’t disappoint the audience. I kept mouthing words that weren't even words but speaking in tongues. A carnival glossolalia. Disjointed phrases about popcorn and lion tamers. My body was buzzing, my head was waterlogged, and my eyes were darting. All to appease some imagined audience.

I somehow managed to get myself to the bathroom and attempt to calm down. I still couldn't shake the delusion. It was stuck to me like some insanity inducing love bug. I knew what was wrong, and I knew I needed to fix it, but my mind remained on the tightrope. I kept repeating over and over that I needed to get out of the circus. I tried breathing exercises. In… and then out, in… and then out. In with the air, out with the circus. In with the oxygen, out with the delusion.

Still buzzing but a bit more stable, I made my way to the show manager and said I needed to stop stewarding. She understood. I made my way back to where my parents were stationed and cried. I let them down. I shoved work onto other that should have been done my me. But at least I was out of the circus.

So, now you’ve had a glimpse into my reality. I haven’t stewarded since for fear of a similar episode. I hope any capital J “job” I eventually get won't be as bad. It might be impossible, or at least a million times worse, but I hope it's neither.

If there's one thing I've learned while growing up in Noirbury, it's that soot is a universal truth. It's everywhere. On the roofs, on the roads, in the clouds, in our hair, it's even wormed its way into our DNA. I don't like it, but I dare not say it. “How could you hate the only thing you have,” My mother would say to me over and over again. The things is, I have more that soot. We have more that soot. There is more to this world than soot.

The word dull is new to me. I didn't know what dull was since dull was everything I saw. Does a fish know what water is if they've never leaped out of it? Luckily I leapt out of the sooty lake of Noirbury and into the air of Eclavon.

I was wandering in the woods near my house and I just… kept exploring. I hadn't really given the forest much attention, and I wish I had earlier. Such tall giants of nature, with bark as dark as the—apparently starless, as I've recently learned—night sky, and leaves as grey as the dawn. Even the sound of the leaves and branches swaying in the crisp breeze was utterly captivating. I wandered for what seemed like hours, making sure to walk in a straight line so I didn't get lost.

While I was tossing around the idea of turning back home, something caught my eye. It was beyond indescribable with my former vocabulary. It was something shiny. A sparkle. A glimmer. A twinkle. A shimmer. It was so many words I didn't know, and I love this newfound verbal power I have on my tongue and in my pen!

Anyways, I was transfixed on the glint (what a wonderful word!) I saw in the distance and walked towards it slowly. I didn't want it to run away. The closer I got, the more fear welled up in me. I had a conservatory of stomach butterflies within me. I felt the looming omnipresence of danger and wrongdoing as I approached the flicker.

I passed through the ironclad shadow of the forest, and what I saw brought me to my knees and made me cry. Color! Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, violet, turquoise, magenta, maroon! Such exotic names i've learned to describe the divine view! I was surrounded by indescribable beauty and it made me quiver and sob. I felt that I had lost all capacity for language. Trying to comprehend the incomprehensible while my eyes were being stuffed with an ethereal feast; I felt like I was dying. Transcending! I had escaped Plato’s cave!

I was spotted by a creature that seemed to be a resident of this neighboring world. “Oh my! Are you alright dearie,” it asked as it stared down at my shuddering body. I looked up and saw… a rabbit? It was on two legs and was almost 2D; built out of narrow iridescent pipes. “Wh-wh-who are y-you,” I asked, still overwhelmed.

“I’m Alice! Pleased to be your acquaintance. What’s your name if I may ask?”

“I-I'm Chris… wh-where am I?”

“This is the land of Eclavon! You look awfully dirty… and dull.”

“Dull?”

“Oh I'm terribly sorry! Did I offend you?”

“No, I've just never heard of that word.”

“Oh? That's curious. It means, well, the opposite of Elcavon!”

“I have… so many questions.”

“No problem chap! I'd be happy to help!”

We started out slow. Alice taught me the basic colors by pointing at flowers and colorful lights in the sky. She taught me about bright things, like herself, and something called the sun. She even told me about dull things like my home. She taught a fish to recognize water and air. Most importantly, she showed me the very origin of life, in Eclavon at least.

She presented to me a tree that seemed to be growing pipes—the same ones alice was made of—instead of leaves or fruit. “Theses are the trees of life,” Alice gestured with a smile on her face, If I can even call it that. She plucked a pipe off of the tree and started bending and shaping it. The pipe bent with ease like clay as she formed it into a wire frame butterfly. As soon as she finished, the butterfly flew from her hands. I was dumbfounded. “Neat isn’t it,” Alice giggled. She plucked another pipe and handed it to me. “Now you try!” I sheepishly took the pipe and formed it into butterfly as Alice did. To my surprise, it fluttered from my hands onto a nearby pink (my favorite color! ...I think. There's too many to choose from) flower.

I gazed at it for some time, and then I remembered how I came here. “I’m sorry, I have to go!” I started running and then I froze. I slowly turned towards Alice. “Could I… take some of those pipes with me?” She lit up. Not only here expression, but her whole body, too. “Of course dearie!” She harvested five pipes, or Eclats, as Alice informed me, from the tree and sent me on my way.

I ran home fueled on excitement; looking at the grass that wasn't green, the trees that weren't brown, and the flowers that weren't colorful. I had escaped Plato’s cave, and I brought a piece of reality back with me.

Andrew was the first to greet me when I came out of the forest. “Chris! Chris!” he called. You’d think an age difference of ten—actually nine, he turned seven last week—would create some friction or sibling rivalry between us, but we get along well. He gave me a hug and beamed at me. I guess there was something shiny here after all: his smile. “You wanna play tag?” A smile spread across my face. “I have a better idea.” I pulled one of the Eclats out of my pocket. “Whoa,” Andrew gasped, “Lemme see! Lemme see!” I lifted it out of his reach. “Hold on!” he sat down patiently (It’s nice that he always listens to my instructions) as I bent the Eclat into shape, and closed my palms around it. “Ready?” I opened up my hands and a frog hopped out. “That's so cool!” Andrew gave me a standing ovation and then tip-toed after the frog. I sat down and pulled out another Eclat. This time a made a small bird. It hopped on my shoulders, then my head, and sang a little song. I giggled.

My mother opened the back door and poked her head outside. “Dinner is almost—oh my god!” She was stunned by the shimmery bird on my head and the frog now in Andrew’s hands. “You two get in here right now!” She pulled me in by my arm and Andrew followed. “Where did you get those, those… those things?” Her voice was rich with anger, and the was a faint hint of fear as well. “Why? What's wrong with them? They’re so shiny and pretty!” Andrew nodded in agreement, although I doubt he knew the meaning of those words. “It’s not allowed. Ever. Do you want the Imposer to visit us?”

My blood ran cold. The Imposer only came down from the mountain when something was wrong. His definition of wrong. He comes to fix what he sees as as a detriment (a word I've noticed he loves to use), and he fixes it alright. With punishment. With pain. With torture. With death. The Imposer doesn’t have any set rules either, or if there is its unknown to us. No public moral compass. All we have to go off of are the terrible fates of others.

“Wait, so you know what this is?”

“No, but you need to get rid of it.”

“But it's something different! Something beautiful! Something that isn’t dull!”

“Exactly why it has to go, and don’t say that word.”

“Dull?”

“Correct.”

“But that's exactly what this soot-buried place is! Dull! I hate it!”

“How could you hate the only thing you have?”

I rolled my eyes. She said it again for the billionth time. “I have more than soot,” I retorted, “We have more than soot. There is more to this world than soot! And this is it!” I pointed at the frog Andrew was holding. “There is a world of beauty and color and life that is so much better than here!” She scowled at me. “You can go there all you want, but you bring back nothing from it.” She snatched the bird and frog from us. Andrew pouted. The bird and frog tweeted and croaked in desperation, trying to break free from my mother’s grasp. She stomped outside and smothered the two iridescent creatures in the ground, coating them in soot. They slowed their movements before seizing up. “There! Shine removed.” She carried the lifeless pipes inside and threw them in the trash can. “Look, I know you find these new things exciting, but I’m doing this to protect you” She patted me on the head. How condescending. At least she didn’t know I had more Eclats.

For the next few weeks I met with Alice in private, learning more and more about how lacking my home was, and creating more life with Eclats (butterflies being Alice's favorite, and mine birds). I stowed my creations away in my room, and soon, I had a tiny petting zoo in my closet. Then there was a loud boom.

There was a collective gasp from the townsfolk, which was immediately followed by mass panic. I look outside and saw a huge cloud of dust soot and snow tumbling down from the mountain. The Imposer was coming. For me.

My eyes went wide and my body started buzzing. I tried to calm my nerves and remember the plan Alice and I had created. I grabbed a tin jar off my desk filled with Eclats and started working.

“I find it quite strange that they don’t allow Eclats in your home. It could definitely use some color and shine there.” Alice had said during a meet up few days ago. She sipped her tea—which somehow didn’t fall through her. “I know right,” I responded, “If only everyone could come and see Eclavon.”

“What’s stopping them?”

“Well, it sounds like a tall-tale to them. It’s hard to explain color and shine.”

“This Imposer fellow sounds like rubbish.”

“Yeah, I wish I could get rid of him.”

Alice lit up (again, her whole body), “Maybe we can.” I looked at her curiously. “How?” Alice let out a sly laugh. “Well this bloke must be used to the bleak area. I bet he couldn’t withstand too much shine. If we make enough creatures, we may be able to take down that bloody tyrant!” I was stunned. “Are you sure I should do this?” She nodded. “It's time to stop living in fear, don't you think?” I reluctantly nodded in return.

I saw the Imposer from my window a couple blocks down. He is a grand, looming figure. A twenty foot tall mass of shadows. Many hands shifting, disappearing, and reappearing: The souls he has damned trying to break free. “I am looking for a strong and beautiful bug that shall no longer infect my paradise,” he boomed, “Your beauty is sickening and objectively detrimental.”

My hands were in a flurry, making one iridescent bird after another. I placed them in a box and covered it with a sheet. My mom stormed in to my room, equally engaged and terrified. “Chris! I was doing this to protect you! Do you know the dangers of being different? Doing different? Talking different? That,” she pointed at my window, “is your fate now! Why didn’t you listen to me?” She was crying now. I stopped crafting to say something but it got caught caught in my throat. I kept on going fueled on anxiety.

Every thud from the Imposer shook the earth, gradually getting louder and more violent as he approached the house. Suddenly the tremors stopped and, there was a soft tap on the window. I turned my head toward it, and I saw his eye. A hole so petrifying I can't describe it with my current vocabulary. “You shouldn’t have hatched out of that applewood table, boy.” The Imposer’s voice was so deep it shook my bones. The ground shook intensely as The Imposer shifted into a position to take me captive. The deafening screams and crumbling earth made a cacophony to mark the end of my world.

I shakily moved my arm towards the box of Eclat creatures. I prayed on the stars I could not see, and hoped Alice’s plan worked. My hand touched the box just as I felt the pull of his vacuum-esk mouth. I pulled off the sheet and dozens upon dozens of iridescent birds flew right into the Imposer in a radiant flurry. He went into a spasm. The earth seemed to be shattering unable to support his violent movements. There was series of mechanical shrieks and groans as he slowed down. He turned his rickety head towards me and let out an ear splitting scream. The Imposer made a desperate attempt to grab me; breaking down my house’s wall. I was snatched by his simultaneously freezing cold and scalding hot hand, and he brought me closer to his cavernous mouth. “You will keep pace with my drum, or that of the parade of death,” He roared, making my ears ring. I smelled the stench of decaying souls as I prepared for my drastic demise.

Coming too close for comfort, the Eclat birds and created a fissure across the Imposer’s back and burst open. He was torn to several shreds, which dissolved in the light of the glittery explosion. I fell in a nearby tree, trying to calm down my rapid breathing. The townsfolk were stunned, and then elated. Cheers of celebration filled the lanes and boulevards. My mom ran outside with Andrew not far behind. She helped me out of the tree and hugged me a little too tight and for a little too long. “Is it over,” Andrew asked, looking up at me with his tear stained face. “Yup,” I replied, “It’s over forever.”

The next day, I went to meet Alice and celebrate our victory. I even convinced her to visit my home. She was praised for playing part in the land’s liberation, and was swarmed by curious little children. She had lots to tell the children, and the adults who had their memories clouded with soot over the years. It was then I realized that we aren't fish. A fish thrives in the mundane pond. We are tadpoles maturing into frogs, able to thrive in the air outside the pond.

The king of Eclavon heard of the successful revolution, and decided to lend a monarch's hand. Royal cleaners were sent to rid the land of its oppressive soot. Slowly the land became more colorful. More shiney. More bright. More enlightened. The sun was rising on our new land, even if we didn’t know what the sun was. Still, something was rising, and rise it did. For once, we saw a dawn that was not grey. We saw a dawn that said: “There is more to this world than soot.”