Falsehood is not fantasy. There’s a difference, and it’s this: everything false is true somewhere, sometime. Falsehood is not so much untruth as truth misplaced. Fantasy, on the other hand, is unmoored; unlikely to be true anywhere, ever, unless by some wild accident. Fantasy has no interest in veracity, but it’s all falsehood ever thinks about. The cheater photographed at a motel when they’re supposed to be at work won’t say ‘No, that’s not me. I was visiting the Goblin King in his crystal palace underground all afternoon!’. No, they’ll say something like: ‘That’s not me. I was in a meeting with the MD and the advertising agency all afternoon!’. They’ll say that because it’s true, somewhere.
So, in that light, what I’m about to describe is quite autobiographical.
When I was a boy, once I’d gotten over the astronaut and fire-fighter phases, I decided I was going to be an architect, and my first project was the house I was going to live in when I was the richest man in the world. A fifteen-story tower built into an ocean-side bluff (Pacific, naturally), with four floors underground, but with wall-to-wall windows offering a full underwater view. My bedroom, of course, would be the penthouse, with a helicopter parked on the roof. I must admit there’ve been some refinements and adjustments to the original plan. The arcade floor has been replaced with a gym (I don’t like exercise, but I detest video games). The cinema has also been scaled down and I abandoned the miniature soccer pitch altogether. I did keep the floors housing the world’s largest Star Wars toy collection and the walk-in aquarium. Redundant when you have four floors looking onto the actual ocean, but I’ve compensated for that by replicating only freshwater environments. The original plan had provided for bedrooms for six children. But I’ve abandoned those, and the idea of fatherhood (I’ll leave that to other mes, this world’s too full). I have no wife, but a diverse supply of highly-specified lovers, but they never come up to the penthouse. Children don’t think of such things, so this was not in the original design, but I have my dalliances shown straight to the boudoir on the underwater level, where we do our best to frighten the fish. Functional activities require properly equipped functional spaces, and I’m a believer in compartmentalization, to avoid messy cross-contaminations. I am, as you see, a very modern individual.
My favorite floor, however, is the Hall of Seasons. I’m sitting there right now. You enter through the back of a wardrobe like the one in C. S. Lewis’s classic, which opens onto a winter wonderland with fir trees and a snowy clearing with a 1940s country lamppost in the middle. it’s all Christmas themed at the moment, and I’m watching baby reindeer frolic whilst wind-chimed carols tinkle in the cold air. Yes, it’s all temperature controlled, so it’s a very seasonal 30 degrees Fahrenheit at the mo. The window is screened out, and awash with Northern lights 24-7. When spring comes, the servants (currently dressed as elves) will sweep away the snowflakes, haul the fir trees out to the nurseries, and bring in the cherry blossoms and dogwoods. It’s peaceful in here. And with all these fairy lights and decorations, it’s Christmassy as heck…
I’m not actually the richest man in the world, truth be told. One of, but not the. You may be wondering how I made my money? I wrote a wildly successful speculative novel about human hibernation facilities, and a top-secret military contractor paid me billions for the “blueprint”. I dread to think what they’ll do with it, but, like I said, I’m a very modern man. If they hadn’t bought the idea from me, it would have been from someone else…somewhere, sometime.
INSTANT NOODLES 