ABSTRACT
The story explores one of our deepest fears: that we are mediocre. But it is the very lack of talent, or it’s calling—e.g., I love music but have no talent, etc.; or in Timothy’s case, I want to fly but lack wings—that creates a sense of otherness, an alternative self that must, like a shadow, coexist with the stultified reality. In this sense, the fear of mediocrity is the whetstone of the imaginative, the would-be-self living out, as Timothy’s sister Cecey does, the dreams and adventures of others. Her magic is in making her hosts aware of a poetic spirit or Muse within. But it’s a cruel joke because Cecey lives in them, but never reveals herself to them; the upshot is that her hosts mistake her possession as their inner artistic vision.
