My Response to Pocket Dimension

My friend, Michael, recently posted a writing prompt about pocket dimensions. I thought it would be fun to answer his questions in the form of a blog post.

Congratulations! You have your own little world. Not just your imagination – this is a physical reality, and you can step into it at will. Maybe it’s a pocket dimension, or your own private little corner of the Fay Realms. Whatever it is, it’s yours. So…

1. What does your realm look like? Is it indoors? Outdoors? A cottage on a deserted shore? A crumbling castle at the heart of a dark forest? A broad lake with a waterfall at one end and beaches around three sides? Something else entirely?

My pocket dimension is indoors. It’s located in the library of a grand, old house that is magically well-insulated. The house is cool in the summer, warm in the winter, never dusty, and always a comfortable place to visit.

The library itself has a large fireplace on one end and floor-to-ceiling windows on the other. The wood floors have been recently swept, and all of the books are arranged neatly according to the Dewey Decimal system. Many of them are about topics humans would recognize, albeit from a strictly faery perspective instead of from a human one. Let’s just say that they weren’t a fan of the Iron Age at all.

With that being said, some of the books aren’t like anything you’d find on Earth. Some of the books have mouths and will have long conversations with you if you ask them the right questions. Others teach you how to fly as you read them, share alternate histories of Earth if one key fact had changed at a particular time and place, and a few might even be portals to other places entirely if you flip to the correct page of the right story and read it’s contents aloud.

There is a washroom and well-stocked kitchen off to either side of the library for anyone who needs them while they’re visiting. I often grab a piece of fruit and cup of tea before I begin reading.

2. Do you keep it to yourself, give a few friends access to it as well, or open it to anybody?

The library is open to anyone I trust who loves knowledge and adventure. They are free to visit it with or without me at any time of the day or night.

3. Does your realm have its own inhabitants? What are they like? Do you ever bring them across to our world?

The house is owned and maintained by faeries, but you might never run into one. They’re quite shy around most humans. Even I have only met one of them, and even that was the briefest encounter you can possibly imagine. She nodded slightly at me, cracked open the door to the library, and then never showed herself again.

I wouldn’t be strong enough to bring one of the faeries back to Earth with me even if I spotted another one and wanted to show them our world. They do whatever it is they want to do, and that’s all there is to it.

4. Does entering your personal world change you? Do you dress differently, speak differently? Are you someone else when you’re there?

You cannot enter the faery library if you’re carrying anything like iron that would hurt the faeries or if you’re harbouring any thoughts about harming them, the house, or anyone else in it. Other than that, you may speak, dress, and behave as you wish.

5. Is time the same in your realm as it is out here? Is there a steady differential, like three days there pass in only an hour of our time? Or is it stranger than that?

Time is different in the faery house. A few hours of reading there generally translates into a few minutes of time in our world, but this isn’t a straightforward rule. As with everything related to faeries, they can’t be forced to follow human rules. Anyone who wishes to visit their library should remember that and prepare for the small possibility of returning much sooner or later than they were expecting.

6. How do you get to your world? Do you have to visit a specific place? Speak a certain phrase? Or is it just a matter of will and desire?

It’s a matter of will and desire. If you wish to read in a quiet, comfortable place, have no ill intentions, and have satisfied whatever nebulous criteria the faeries have for this oasis, you stand a good chance of finding a door to this place.

How would you answer these questions? What would your pocket dimension be like?

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

2 Responses to My Response to Pocket Dimension

  1. I want to come visit your library.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *