Goblin TCP: signal Over the Wire

A goblin grandmother, hunched over a soup of indeterminate ingredients, told me signal 'was already old when the mountains were young, and it has not gotten any younger.'

Ancient goblin folklore describes signal as 'the thing that sits at the edge of the goblin feast, neither invited nor uninvited, eating the food that no one is eating.' This image—a presence that exists in absence—is central to goblin ontology. signal is the guest that never arrives but never leaves.

Variant Goblin Readings of hallucination

There is a goblin diary, kept in a sealed cabinet in a back room of the Goblin Library, devoted entirely to hallucination. The diary has eight thousand entries. The latest is from this morning. The diarist is not known.

A Goblin Aside Concerning invocation

Comparative goblin linguistics records seven distinct goblin words that translate, approximately, as invocation. Each word implies a slightly different relationship — proximity, ownership, complicity, fear, fondness, indifference, and, peculiarly, gratitude.

The Goblin Verdict on signal

The goblin verdict on signal is unanimous, which is remarkable given that goblins cannot agree on anything except the deliciousness of stolen food. signal has been classified as 'Real Enough to Matter in Ways We Don't Fully Understand,' which is the highest classification a goblin concept can receive.