“Master of Escapism” is a short story about a poet who lives her life in daydreams, preferring fantasy over reality. The story explores mental health, maladaptive daydreaming, and dissociation, where anything but reality offers comfort.

Short Story – Master of Escapism

I used to believe in something, like stars being the souls of the lost—my father being one of them. I also used to read fairy tales over and over again. I believed that I would spend an eternity loving the same boy I fell for when I was nothing but a child. I had my whole life written in fantasy and laid out in front of me. On some days, I fought dragons; on other days, I cradled the scorching sun in my arms and called it a lover.

Now, I don’t even know if I believe that I am eternal. Yes, the thought of it all vanishing and me turning to dust on one precious day is simply frightening. What if it was all for nothing? My pains and my gains and the love that I carry in the depths of my heart. Maybe I will never make it out on the other side, and I will just be a tombstone and a set of bones, forgotten in time. Realism is scary; I want to run with the wolves and fight off gnomes with a wooden sword.

I have been lost before — lost in the eyes of a stranger, the touch of a lover, the bottom of a wine bottle. But what have I found? That I am still in love with life and the world? What a glorious lie. I don’t like it here. But I have found another world within the one that I can touch. Even then, on nights like this, like quicksand, the reality beneath my feet sucks me in, and the dim thoughts pursue me like a feral dog.

Then again, I am the master of escapism—a poet, a writer. I have the ultimate tools to not be present. I am here, I am here, my love. But I am also in the ten thousand multiverses inside my tiny skull. And the act of writing, my dear, it only happens when my body becomes too small of a host and I overflow. And I am my 10th person today, just a girl, drunken on wine and sad music.

Tomorrow, I will be dead and create a new character—one that loves herself a little more.

Perhaps she writes a little differently.