Children naturally hyperbolize the
world. From their novel point of view, they experience everyday life in a
partial dream state. To a new mind, reality is a caricature of itself.
The interior of the family car at night, with all its
illuminated controls and aqua-neon readouts, becomes the cockpit of a
spaceship. The doctor's needle looks and feels like a harpoon! Skittles really
are pellets of solidified rainbows.
And that unfriendly elderly lady down the street, with
the overgrown garden from which you must uneasily retrieve your lost ball, is a
terrible plant-woman just waiting to ensnare you in tendrils, cast some wicked
botanical spell, and pot your freckled little ass like cilantro.
