Belated.  But I wanted to get it right, at least for myself.  200 words to celebrate Neil Gaiman’s 50th birthday.

“I don’t understand… If power is derived from prayer then…” the Reader fell silent.

“Belief!" The Narrator corrected. “belief is debate. Power is simply a thing, to be picked up and used; Or not.”

The Reader bowed their head. It was an important point. All prayer was amorphous. Belief was perhaps the crux of the graduation. At this, the crowd of observers went both silent and still, sensing the result of the process reaching its natural conclusion. Reader and Narrator, the tradition born in conflict. It had always been so.

“But Narrator,” and there was a nascent challenge in the query; the crowd hushed.

“Is not the force of the belief the goal of the narrative?”

“In that,” intoned the Narrator, “lies the purpose of the prayer.”

The Reader, en masse, considered the issue.

“Is it not then worship, not belief nor prayer?” the Reader asked.

The Narrator reflected.  “It is none and all.  Do you now see the point?”

The Reader considered. “Yes. Therefore you, and we, reside in a powerless place.  Informed and rejected. All, at once”

The Narrator exhaled: “This is the truth. Therefore, we exist equally.”

The crowd bowed, for it was.

Happy Birthday Neil Gaiman.