There was a time when I believed a large bull was sitting outside of my bedroom with glowing red eyes and smoke coming from its nostrils. I was convinced that, if I stepped outside of my room, this bull would charge at me. I was maybe four or five years old when I had this belief. I knew it was unlikely, even then, but when the middle of the night comes and the darkness presses around it, it becomes much easier to believe in things that cannot possibly be. I also still believed in a Santa Claus back then. I guess I was even buying into the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. There are times I miss those days.

I believe that the world should be full of magic. I believe that very much. I am also a fan of science. I think science has done some great things. We have been to the moon and back. We have placed a rover on Mars and gotten a look at that world. We have found cures for some diseases and ways to slow down others. If you lose a limb these days you can replace it with technology so amazing it’s almost realistic. Science is a good thing, but science also isn’t magical. Science is cold. Science is about numbers. I hate numbers. Numbers don’t bend and they don’t really change. They are the same and that is a sad thing.

There is nothing sadder to me than an adult who has not kept that inner child alive inside of them. I have run across people who cannot read a novel if that novel has any reference to fling saucers or space people. I have run into adults who cannot enjoy movies like “Lord of the Rings” not because they just didn’t like the movie but because they cannot get into a movie that involves magic, wizards and little hair-footed people. It’s one thing to find the movies dull, as I have also heard, or poor made but it’s another not to enjoy them just because you can’t enjoy a story that involves magic. That, to me, is sad. That, to me, is someone who has forgotten a world full of magic and traded it for one of cold hard facts.

There is little joy in facts. Facts are often sad. Rarely do you hold up a fact and rejoice in it and ooh and aah and dazzle at that fact. The best facts are the ones that still have that air of magic to them. When you realize that light years means the number of years it takes for light from that star to reach earth I ooh and I aah because that seems magical to me. The idea that some of the stars that I see in the middle of the night might have died out years ago but I can still see that light it seems like time travel. That is science but it still seems magical.

I don’t honestly believe in ghost and goblins. I don’t follow rainbows to their ends and hope to find leprechauns and pots of gold. I find that somewhat sad. However, I do hold out hope that maybe everything I know is wrong. I hold out some hope that maybe there is a world just beyond out vision that we cannot see. I like to think that there is a world where fairies fly on paper-thin wings and pots of gold can be found at the end of many things.

I recently saw a movie called “Pan’s Labyrinth” that dealt with this theme. It is about a little girl who continues to believe in magic even as the world gets more and more brutal around her. Despite everyone telling her she needs to put away childish things and come around to reality she staunchly refuses. In the end this gives hope as the world descends into chaos.

I think this is a great message. It is told beautifully and the movie is dazzling in special effects and acting. However, the message may be lost on many. I find that sad as well.

There was a time when most of us chose to believe in magic. We watched the guys on television pulling rabbits out of various things and thought it was real. I remember watching a magician with a supposed invisible wallet that he was tossing coins into and thinking how cool it would be to have that wallet. I actually thought it was real. Yes, as I have grown up, I have come to enjoy stage magicians because of the lengths they go to in order to produce those tricks but some part of me longs for the days when I accepted that those magicians somehow had mystical knowledge I did not. Instead, knowing they maybe have more knowledge of sleight of hand and how to use dazzling lights to distract is cool but takes away a little of the magic.

I choose to believe the world still has magic. I choose to hold true to the idea that the world has more to it than I can see. I like to think that reality is a very thing veil and just beyond that veil is a world of dragons and wizards and trolls. Some of it is scary, but some of it is truly delightful. I choose to believe that maybe ghosts actually exist. I also choose to believe that there are angels and demons as well.

Of course, I am a writer. I write fiction of all kinds. I have written murder mysteries and I have written science fiction. It pays, if you are a writer, to choose to believe in haunted houses and demons possessing people. It makes for great stories and great novels. So, I have a stake in that belief.

This also doesn’t mean I walk around making signs at things I consider evil or sprinkling the blood of recently sacrificed animals around my front door. It doesn’t mean I truly expect a troll to show up at my door with a battle axe over his shoulder. I don’t plan to start chasing after rainbows in hopes of finding pots of anything. It just means that I hold out hope the world still has magic. I choose to believe that people can do things you don’t expect them to do. I choose to believe that things can happen that we cannot explain using science.

There is a story still floating around here in Chicago about a flying saucer or something a O’Hare airport. Nearly ever claim has now been discredited. I find that sad. I was amused at the idea that O’Hare was so busy that even intergalactic travel had to go through O’Hare now. This would certainly be a better explanation for why your flight is delayed than there is a small radar problem there. I liked the idea that maybe there was a hidden O’Hare behind the O’Hare we see every day where maybe aliens waited in lines as long as you wait in to board ships to other planets.

I don’t really think there is such a thing, but it’s more fun to wonder. Science is great. I couldn’t be typing this on my computer without science. I couldn’t be watching my television without science. However, it’s still more fun to think there are things in this world we cannot explain with numbers and quantify on charts. That’s the world I choose to live in. I think it’s a lot more fun.

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.