"So good to see you; I've missed you so much."

Would you like to play a game?

It's an imaging game.

Too late, you're already playing.

I'm standing right in front of you. Look at me. Look me in the eye. Look down at my hands. Look back to my eyes. Look at me. Watch me. See me. I reach both hands up, and draw something across your forehead. A sharp, tight sensation, just across the top middle of your forehead. The fingers on my left hand spread the skin apart. You can feel it. Look at me. Watch me. It's not painful. It's strange, but it doesn't hurt, and you look at me. You watch me, from three eyes, and your perception of everything is completely changed, enhanced, different, intensified, the same, clarified, wrong, right. Look at me. Look around.

What do you see?

"Invisible Labyrinth"

Talking backwards
Because time will not go backwards
Because I will walk until I see an answer
graffiti written backwards on the wall invisible
Because I am getting ahead...
watch my dust.

The fear is of the unknown.
We kill the things we do not understand.
Here:
Talk backwards
Animate a dream
Here:
Talk backwards
Glamours mask the fear.

The need to get ahead, the burning need
(watch my dust, daughter, watch my dust.)
I need more than illusion
We do it with mirrors,
and rabbits
anthanors
and doves...

I thought I had found my way to
the center of the invisible labyrinth;
And I had-perhaps-discovered
no more than the entrance.

Watch my dust.

When the magic appears, when the lights go up,
When I'm dressed in my top hat
And my coat of many pockets
And I'm talking backwards...

Then I knew I was edging through the maze.
And once I had gone past delusion
Past the others
All 'the great', 'the amazing', 'the master of illusion',
Past all of them
Once they had seen my dust,
I found

Emptiness
The hollow place at the center of
the maze
No returning
No way back

Not even speaking backwards
Not even walking backwards

I retreated into safety,
The world of illusion,
In the stage,
In the footlights,
All eyes upon me and no one really seeing,

Because I do not talk backwards;
Because I do not say,

(thgin emoceb seilfrettub)
And the night does not become butterflies.
I give nothing of myself to the audience,
As I do with mirrors
And strings
And sleight
The delusion of illusion and the hand
deceives the eye...

My life is strobed like lightning by a follow-
spot,
And looking backwards I can only see
The corpses of the animals and birds
Who strutted with me on the darkened stage
And helped me fool them all.

Charms of birds
And hats full of dead rabbits.

I take my last bow with pride, as proudly as
befits a conjure man
going down in flames,
up in smoke.

There is no walking backwards,
And I am lost in the labyrinth invisible
I cannot retrace my steps.

I wrote my name on the wall of the
invisible labyrinth.
I was so diligent in my studies;
Gave my whole time and heart to the
pursuit.

I wrote my name, but I can find it
no longer;
My ashes blow like dust around the
invisible labyrinth.
©1993 Neil Gaiman. All Rights Reserved.