Imagination Runs Wild in This “What If” Scenario

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My imagination always runs wild. Another blogger posted an article on the subject “what if,” the end of September. I’m always thinking about “what if,” so I decided to weigh in on this. That subject is so wide open. It can take your mind in a thousand different directions. Literally, in your mind, roads run out everywhere across a vast plain, which path will you decide to walk down?


I live in the desert, as many of you know, and outback, behind my house, the desert stretches out with nothing in sight except various native bushes and red sand, but among that the jagged faces of giant cliffs and bluffs rise up. There are numerous nooks and crannies there where owls, ravens, and birds of prey roost, perhaps other things too. However, I always look on that as a magical world – as I write fantasy most of the time – so why not?

The carved rocks intermingle with old black lava flows. Jackrabbits go there to stay the night and then venture out into the desert sand and sagebrush during the day. There is a low spot where tamarack trees grow and they hang out there too because the water supply is abundant, fed by underground springs.

I can imagine all sorts of life going on back there, as animals have a daily routine, just as humans do. It is easy to let your imagination carry you away with thoughts of getting everyone up for breakfast, off to school and such, or gathering the group back together before sunset with their anxious and mournful cries. It leaves me to wonder if the animals also enjoy the cool that evening brings.

There is a large mountain, 10,000 feet high, behind my house, that has a large crevice, and I can imagine that as the entrance to a magical world, abuzz with life in the fairy kingdom, yet just a common rock when looked at by most human eyes, which perhaps don’t even notice it at all. (I’m talking about the crevice – or magical door if you will, not the mountain.)

On another note, you can picture that landscape as it was in the days of the old west, with perhaps Indians lined up on the ridge in all their war gear, as they looked down on the covered wagons below and the brave adventurer’s making camp for the night on their way to greener pastures and new beginnings.

Perhaps a sheriff chased outlaws back there yeas ago, galloping on horseback past all the boulders, their hoofs kicking up the red dirt. Shots fired, as they’d take cover in the hollows of the lava fields.

Alternatively, turn this into a suspense story with a killer on the loose back there, existing in the desert to creep out in the still of the night to do his deed and disappear again before daybreak.

Going in a totally different direction, what if I had never ended up living in the desert, but had stayed in one of the other states I’ve lived in, never gotten married, had a great job or a lousy job, was homeless and living on the street, or residing in a great mansion you only see on TV.

As you can see, the mind can go anywhere on this subject. Where does the phrase “what if” take you?