Swiping Away the Fantasy World

  

Swiping Away the Fantasy World 

“Something in him had shifted”

    For weeks now, Garret Thorthon had been dreaming of a house—an old, weathered place tucked away at the start of the street where he’d grown up. The dreams came uninvited, vivid and oddly persistent. He couldn’t say whether the house was real or simply imagined, a construct pulled from some random dusty corner of his childhood mind.

It wasn’t the kind of house that demanded attention. Set back from the frist line of his street, hidden behind a tangle of fruit trees and broken wood, it lurked like a half-forgotten memory. The yard was unkempt, the structure tired, as if time itself had started to forget it. Garret remembered—or thought he did—that it stood just behind the Stevenson family’s tall, modern building. But that only added to the confusion: the Stevenson place was a towering five-story home, newer, louder, and grander than anything else on the street. Could the house from his dreams have even survived behind it?

During the day, the image of the house would flash into his thoughts like a flickering candle. At first he didn't paid too much attention to it. But one afternoon, with time to spare and curiosity gnawing at him, he gave in. He opened Google Maps, searched for his hometown street, and switched to Street View.

And there it was.

The house was real. The same sagging roof, the pale front windows now framed with new white PVC. Above the second floor, the faint outline of painted letters emerged like a ghost from the past: Miller’s House.

Garret's heart quickened. The dream was based in is real chilwood true life.

As he stared at the screen, a stream of memories returned like whispers on the wind—beginning faintly to then becoming louder and clearer.

He was around ten again. The air was thick with the smell of rain. He and his neighbor friends—maybe siblings, maybe not—had gathered outside after a storm, when the snails came out of hiding. They played with them in the muddy yard, marveling at the glistening trails and curling shells, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

There was laughter. There was magic at this point.

He remembered seeing an old man under one of the fruit trees. They spoke—about what, he couldn’t recall. That part of the memory had faded like words in a dream. But the feeling remained fresh: warmth, wonder, the unshakable joy of childhood curiosity.

Garret’s young world back then was made of stories. Talking animals, kingdoms ruled by children, witches in candy houses (Hans & Gretel). He adored The Wizard of Oz, especially the idea of being swept away by a tornado into a land where rabbits wore waistcoats and lions could speak. That fantasy had been his truth—every bit as real as the brick walls and schoolbooks of his daily life.

But then, suddently it came a memory that never faded.

It returned slowly, at first just a shadow. But then it sharpened into terrifying focus.

He had wandered closer to Miller’s House. On the porch stood a woman—older, though now he guessed she was barely forty. From behind a rusted cage, she pulled out a rabbit. With a swift, practiced motion, she snapped its neck. Then, as if it were nothing more than a carrot or a loaf of bread, she pierced its skull with a metal hook and hung it beside others—silent, swinging, still.

Garret had watched it all.

He was certain she hadn't seen him. Or maybe she had. It didn’t matter at this point.

Something broke in him. Something delicate and unseen.

That was the moment the fantasy ended. No tornado came to carry him away. No rabbit spoke a word. The worlds of Oz and fairytales vanished like mist under sunlight.

In their place came the real world—where rabbits don’t talk, they die.

And Garret, standing there in the silence of that memory, knew that he had crossed a threshold. The wonder had not vanished completely, but it would never return in quite the same way.

That was the moment Garret was swiped away—not into a fantasy world, but out of it.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 11/05/2025