My goggle-eyed miniature dog friend
, Horatio, and spaghetti-armed pilot from Octopus Land, set off for Candy Mountain this morning. Always one of the many stops along our imaginary tour of the Ideal Universe, none among us ever thought it might be real.
We pooled our bubble gum wads, and stretched it over an open volcano, hopping into the basket made of straw as it rose into the wonderful air, not knowing what we might find.
How will we now when we get there?
Redwood-sized sugarcane trees growing lollipops. Fields of candy corn. Giant rivers of chocolate, with churning chocolate waterfalls. Chocolate running into lakes of milk making milk chocolate shakes. Rocky Road ice cream roads lined with licorice strips. Pixie Stick ice caps. Ice cream icebergs dotting a soda jerk heaven of ocean. Volcanoes spewing hot caramel.
Such is the Candy Mountain of our collective imagination.
But, what if we’re living in a Fantasy Land unable to face Harsh Reality? Are we just Marshmallow People trapped in a candied dream?
Notwithstanding our concerns, we launched toward our destination, intent on seeing what no civilized creature had ever seen: Candy Mountain. If it’s not what we imagined, if it’s filled with angry monsters who want only to tear us limb-from-limb, perhaps we’ll be strengthened by the experience.
‘THERE IT IS!! THERE IT IS!!’ yaps Horatio, spying a geological formation off in the not-so-great distance. But, the pilot had already made directional adjustments.
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ I intoned wisely.
‘The journey is the destination,’ mused the octopus.
‘JUST GET THERE!!’, cried the chihuahua.
Nothing could have prepared us for the reality . .
Something about a sugary-sweet Utopia, a land of never-ending sweetness, blinded us to the Great Reality of Life: there will always be politics.
We see from our aerial perch Dandy Candy Dwarves mining rock candy from Candy Mountain. To have an empire there must be industry. What other industry could there be on Candy Mountain, an entire geological structure constructed of candy, than rock candy mining?
Of course, it all seemed so normal, so regular now. We should have seen it coming. And with wealth and riches comes power.
‘But, he’s so mean!!’, yapped Horatio, considering the Candy Goblin King with giant candy cane scepter smacking Twizzler Gnome minions about as he roared: ‘WE NEED MORE ROCK CANDY!!’
Should we save them?
Clearly, conflict between the Twizzler Gnomes and the Pixies—with their itty, bitty pointy hats—under the rule of the Candy Goblin King with giant candy cane scepter had been going on long before we arrived on the Candy Mountain scene. Going on perhaps since the invention of candy.
We, the wholly-clean newcomers with our highly-moral outlook, so sure we were in the right. What could, should, would we do?
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE STARTLING CONCLUSION TO: ‘The Trip to Candy Mountain: Things Aren’t Always What They Seem’
(Reader input below determines resolution.)
