The disc-eared mouse misses nothing: he hears all, he sees all. He has been seen in all parts of the world, and yet, no one can say for sure if he is even real. He is a grinning ghost, a flickering image, a nightmare. He is childlike, he is ancient, he is ageless…

From his cold fortress, a castle atop a man-made mountain in the middle of a bizarre world he created for his own amusement, he peers greedily at all he does not yet possess. When he feels the time is right, he reaches out with one grotesquely swollen, four-fingered glove and grabs a new plaything, a new slave to do his bidding, to provide a renewed feeling of youth, of connection, of relevance. Billions are spent, voices are raised in protest, but to no avail.

And thus does the world become a small one, after all.

(Disney_in_star image by AMN47, taken at Disneyland Hong Kong)