paracosm - noun - highly defined imaginary world created in a child's mind (Google)
Paracosm is not one of the words on the tips of people's tongues today. In fact, most children and adults tend to be a bit lazy about creating imaginary worlds since technology often does it for them. Which is a shame. I don't know about you, but I miss hearing original, tall tales from young kids or even from adults. Nowadays, the little and big ones generally point out something they favor on a tablet or a laptop. It just isn't the same.
Where I live, you don't need a vivid imagination. You can live inside the possibility of a paracosm easily just by stepping outside the door. To clarify, though, my house isn't in the Badlands of South Dakota. I reside in a development of overly priced houses (McMansions) about twenty-five miles west of New York City. It is called the suburbs, better known as "the 'burbs." (You might recall the Tom Hanks' '80s movie by the same name. Not much has changed since it was made.) There are swatches of green space (called parks) that punctuate the place, but that's about it. Why then would a hungry hawk from God knows where nearly attack me in my own driveway?
It happened just yesterday. As I approached my house, I noticed two unfriendly looking ravens standing near my garage, most likely confabulating in their own language about whatever ravens confabulate about. I thought nothing of them, but probably should have since they don't come around too often. Ostensibly, they were foreshadowing but how was I to know that? As I pulled into the driveway, they flew off only to reveal a previously unseen sidekick, a hawk (or at least an osprey), struggling to tear its already deceased prey, a male cardinal, from the deer netting protecting the front bushes. I figured that if I opened the door of the car, the carrion raptor would fly off in fear. I was wrong, of course. As I attempted to exit the vehicle, the ominous hawk, in attack mode, took wing at ramming speed right at me. Thankfully, my reflexes are still pretty sprightly so that I was able to shut the door before I got viciously pecked at a la fellow blonde Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." (Now it is my guess that based on his films, Alfred probably had impressive paracosms as a kid.) I started the car, drove it down to the edge of the driveway where I parked it. From there, I ambled to the house, all while my plumed antagonist sat perched above on the TV cable, watching my every move. Fortunately, I got into the house safely so that the now starving creature could take the opportunity to devour the cardinal, leaving only several gray tufts of feathers to float faintly through the air minutes later. Fortunately again, it left the premises, hopefully never to be seen again.
Now since you don't know me or my circumstances at all, you might think that I could have invented the entire anecdote, making it an epic paracosm created in an adult's mind. However, I didn't. Who needs a paracosm when real life is weird enough as it is?
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