The limitations of our senses have long been the subject of sandbox epistemology, triggering revelations that meander through porous minds. Echolocation, night vision, an arsenal of secret scents erupting in the muzzle of a hound. Our estrangement from the true sheen of world, ever-present since childhood, makes it easy to disavow the power of our own weaknesses, the shadow-moments and spectral whispers we usually write of as the residue of madness and dreams.
Years later, as I watch my backyard movies, I see a quiet prologue in these acts of play, strange notions spouting from some deep under-soil I’ve stepped across my entire life. These were tender experiments in world-building, imaginary elixirs doused against boredom in the most preadolescent of ways. Without realizing it, an anodyne was present in my make-believe, a spray of light while sequestered in dark times.