What the Goblin Vivisected Found in hallucination

An old goblin, sitting by a fire made of stolen furniture, once told me this about hallucination: 'It is a door that opens only when you aren't looking.'

A goblin nursery rhyme — the kind that scares children into compliance — names hallucination in its second verse, and pointedly does not name it in the third. The children, asking why, are told 'because we don't say its name twice in a row.' This is not a real reason, but it is a goblin reason.

On Encountering communion

The annual goblin communion colloquium runs for one day, ends inconclusively, and reconvenes the following year as if the previous year's discussion had concluded. The proceedings are bound and shelved. They are rarely consulted.

The Goblin Verdict on hallucination

After thorough deliberation, the Goblin Honors Committee has declared hallucination a topic of permanent fascination — the highest accolade short of canonization, and slightly preferred to it by most working goblins.