[Public] Journal Entry: Cecil Palmer, 4/14/2014

[om_vox]

​Not all who wander are lost. Not all who wander are found. Not all who are found know that they were lost in the first place.

Hello students and not-students. My name is Cecil Palmer, and I have just arrived. It's all rather exciting -- I have never been out of Night Vale before. Things are very different here. For one, Night Vale is a desert community, whereas this seems much more temperate. For another, mountains exist, apparently. Also, while the headmasters have assured me that writing implements are perfectly legal, I remain somewhat skeptical. But I suppose I will have to take their word for it.

Oh yes. As for my...ability, I guess? I see things. I see you right now, reading this, hands hovering above your keyboard. Fingers not on the home keys, but you know where they are, and you know exactly where they're going to go. You're waiting, waiting for this to finish so that you can type...well, whatever it is you're intending to type.

Anyway. I am looking forward to meeting you all! I'm sure it will be very instructive.

Comments

[om_ghost]

Hello Cecil. My name is Felix. I see things, too, but whereas you seem to see actual real things, I don't. I mean, I see things that are real, but I see things that are not real as well.

You'd think that would be more confusing, but it isn't.

I grew up in the mountains. Well, former mountains, sort of. Large hills, really, made of rock. Surely those are real.

[om_vox]

Oh, I used to see those. Everyone did. There are many things in Night Vale that aren't real.

But the city council was very firm on the fact that mountains were one of those things. They do seem very real to me now, though. It takes a bit of getting used to.

[om_ghost]

It really does. You might start to question if other things that you previous thought were not real, are actually real. I struggled a lot with that when I first saw a ghost. What else might be real? Vampires? Werewolves? Mummies? Abbott and Costello?

Then I found out that boys who can turn into dogs really are real, so I've rather decided to stop questioning it.

[om_vox]

I find it best to assume that nothing is real. Everything is an illusion, but some illusions are more solid than others. Isn't life just all one big illusion that inevitably ends?

[om_ghost]

Oh, Mister Palmer, I am most definitely not the person to be asking that rhetorical question.

I'm still not convinced that I don't live in the place that I go to when I go to sleep, and that all of this is just a dream that Felix is having.

[om_vox]

Would it be so bad if it was?

[om_ghost]

I'm not sure. I like that world very much, but there are some very interesting people here, and they don't exist there.

[om_vox]

Well, it is a good thing you can experience both, then.