An Allegory of a Birthday Cake.
Dialogue I Don’t Need In Anything I’m Currently Writing #4977.
“Let me put it you this way. You ever have that experience when you were younger, at your own birthday party, and somebody you love and trust decides it would be a hoot to place trick candles on your cake?”
“Sure. I think I was eight.”
“Trick candles, the kind that you blow on them and they light up again? And you blow on them over and over and they keep relighting? And all your cousins and relatives think it’s hilarious but for you it’s deadly serious. This is about the wish. This is about failing on a grand stage because you’re facing off against something you’ve never experienced before, something that seems to defy all laws of nature as you understood them until now.”
“I doubt I thought about it like that.”
“Not that you could articulate. But on a deep spiritual level, you were having a real crisis. You blow on the candle. You defeat the candle. And then for no good reason the candle comes back. You blow on it again. You defeat it again. It comes back. And it is going to cost you your heart’s desire. You blow, it goes out, it comes back, and the worst part is that it’s not your fault. This is the result of somebody else’s decision, their flight of fancy that it’s okay to do this sort of thing to a child. You blow out the candle. It comes back. How did you feel about it?”
“Honestly? I hated it. I hated it so much.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet. (Beat.) And that’s how I feel about the goddamned measles. Now stop arguing with me and vaccinate your kid.”
Creative Control 