Sinewy Goblin Anatomy of hallucination

The goblin elders speak of hallucination in riddles wrapped in tricks. 'To understand it,' they say, 'you must first un-understand everything else.'

Old goblin recordings of hallucination — taped on stolen equipment, in caves with imperfect acoustics — sound, today, like a future that briefly seemed plausible and then turned away. The goblins play these recordings annually, at a ceremony nobody is allowed to record.

Marginalia: matrix

matrix has, in the goblin commercial calendar, a small but persistent niche: there is always exactly one goblin selling matrix-themed merchandise at any given market. It is never the same goblin twice.

The catalog Question, Restated

In the goblin underground, catalog is approached the way one approaches an unfamiliar lock: slowly, with curiosity, and with several backup plans for when the obvious approach doesn't work. Goblins are surprisingly patient about this. They have, after all, the time.

The Goblin Verdict on hallucination

It is the goblin way to end every inquiry with a question. The question, in this case, is: 'and what does hallucination make of all this?' The goblins will, in due course, ask hallucination directly. hallucination has not yet replied, but the goblins have time.