Deleted Preface to new short story, A Father's Fears

My short story, A Father's Fears, will be out soon. But in the meantime, here is a chapter I have since eliminated from the book. I hope you dig it.

Prelude

Lord Imagination sauntered through the room of dreams with his hands clasped behind his back. The colors around him drifted like the liquid in a lava lamp. These colors were mankind’s dreams.

This was always his favorite room in the skyscraper. From the inception of human consciousness, mankind has always dreamed. Over the years, this room has changed in a multitude of ways. The dreams have become brighter and more elaborate with the passing of time, and now, the wavy lines snap about like bullet trains. In simpler times, the multicolored strips would trail across Lord Imagination’s vision slowly like currents in a lazy river. He didn’t even have to squint to see what individuals were dreaming about. Hell, if he wanted to, he could even dip his hands into the strips to provide his own images. This wasn’t, of course, the same thing as altering dreams to inspire a specific result. He would need Lord Instinct to do that. Lord Imagination still occasionally thought about that one time he had to surf the currents of dreams to locate Instinct’s soul after a mishap had occurred. It had been like wading through knee-high mud with the wind constantly pushing him back. He never wanted to endure that again.

But he did want to have some fun. And later today, a man in the outside world named Jeff Haunt was going to go on an adventure. What humored Imagination was that Jeff Haunt had no idea that his life would be changed forever in only a few hours time. Neither did his wife, Marigold, who slept right beside him in bed.

Lord Imagination searched the strips to find Jeff Haunt’s dreams. When he located them, he plunged his arms deep into the yellow tide. He swirled his hands around and moved events to suit his liking. It wouldn’t inspire Jeff Haunt to do anything when he woke up, but it would fill him with doubt and uncertainty. Like a great sculptor admiring her achievement, Lord Imagination grinned at his creations. The weaver of dreams could do no wrong.