CHOOSE YOUR STARTING POINT

Best in Life pg. #6

Page 6 of 6

"Once I dreamed I was a butterfly and now I no longer know whether I am Zhuangzi, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly now dreaming that I am Zhuangzi."
- Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi was a wise sage in ancient China. So what's he doing here in our horror book? I don't know about you boils and ghouls, but I always read this particular passage from Zhuangzi's self-titled book as a horror story! Think about it for one moment. You have a dream so real that you awaken not knowing if you can continue to trust your senses as to your current reality. Do we really know that our lives are anything more than a dream from which we might someday awaken into another dream? In truth, Zhuangzi's sentiment would be echoed two thousand years later by one Edgar Allen Poe!

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
- Edgar Allen Poe

And so, though his end was a happy one, perhaps we should fear for young Jeremy still? Then again, is his subjective reality any less valid than our own? After all, he certainly seems happier than most humans. Deep thoughts for shallow minds, my dear Connoisseurs!

But enough existential dread for the nonce. On to housekeeping. It's October, the holiest month of the year for the living dead such as yours truly! We have only about two and a half months left in the year of Our Lady, Two Thousand and Twenty-four. And yet, we have two comics remaining in this season. Sadly the ghouls in the writing and art departments intermittently go on strike for more rotten flesh and it's becoming more and more difficult to keep them chained to their desks. I, your humble Narrator, can predict with reasonable certainty that you should see one of the two remaining stories published within 2024, but perhaps not both. It remains to be seen whether we can come to terms with the Ghoul Union in time. Nevertheless, we shall carry the season over into 2025 if need be! And let me tell you, the conclusion to our tale of a Babysitter and her young charge is going to be a thrilling revelation!

But before that, up next, we have a tale of two lady scientists and their alarming experiments! Stay tuned, Connoisseurs!