Disclaimer: The Phantom Tollbooth and all the locations in the land of Wisdom belong to Norton Juster, not me. I'm not trying to profit from them, I just adore them shamelessly and wanted to express my love for this book and what it's taught me.
This is Day 5 of my New Year's Project to post one oneshot or poem a day during the month of January (Various fandoms, details on my profile if you're curious).
So few reach Dictionopolis
Where letters grow on trees
And stimulating breezes blow
From Wisdom's bracing seas
But someone showed me, long ago
The precious, hidden way
To lose myself in twisting words
And linger there all day
.
So few reach Digitopolis
Where hidden treasure waits
So few will climb the rocky road
To reach the secret gate
But I've been guided by that way
And found it worth the pain
To see the numbers at their dance
And then come home again
.
From Alec Bings's Point of View
I see a different world
And Chroma's color symphony,
Where beauty is unfurled,
Illusions and Reality;
One's true, but both are sweet.
I've visited Conclusions, too,
And beat a wet retreat.
When Doldrums make me lose my way,
And I learn, to my cost,
That Trivium has won the day
And Rhyme and Reason lost,
No matter how the demons swarm
I know the secret art
Of reaching Wisdom's shining land:
A Tollbooth in my heart.
Honestly...there are, like, three, Phantom Tollbooth fics on this site. I looked. I'm not expecting a lot of attention for this one, but I love this book more than almost any other from my childhood and so couldn't resist. If you read and enjoyed, I'd love to hear from you just to prove that anyone actually knows that this piece/The Phantom Tollbooth exists. I'll be returning to more beaten tracks tomorrow with a Merlin oneshot.