Most geometry teachers agree, a sphere can’t have sides.  No faces, just a smooth net to keep it all in. What we are keeping in, nobody ever seems to know… the whispers of dreams or the secrets of civilizations seem to escape liked freshly squeezed air out of an insolent balloon whenever the sphere is probed for examination.

A boy, no older than nine, brandishes a stick almost as large as his own thin frame, skin as rich as a pine tree’s bark. He has no knowledge of technology.

A placebo can’t know what it has that others don’t, or vice versa.  But aren’t we all placebos? Another’s garage sale has too many hidden deals, and almost as many items long-since broken, only displayed on the patched table because of the duct tape tucked inside that nobody sees. The owner just sells what either has no meaning for her anymore or what she doesn’t need anymore. Or maybe she’s just trying to find something that will bring her more meaning than the items on the card table. A placebo tries for someone else’s lot, not knowing what it is they have or lack.

An ambitious politician rambles fluently in his native tongue. His plans are radical, certainly, but he is positive they will better his country.

Once upon a time, people thought that space was composed of ether.  Frankly, who says it isn’t? A magnifying glass obviously only works for the visible.  Love cannot be seen under this magical feat of scientists, but love can be magnified with other tools, mostly invisible.  Who says ether doesn’t exist? Can gravity dangle things in the air around a giant mass of flames like a puppet from a string? Of course, if no one is holding the puppet, the puppet falls, caused by the aforementioned force of ominous nature.  If ether held this puppet’s strings, who says it needs to be magnified and studied? You can’t magnify ether with a magnifying glass.

An Eskimo crawls out of her tent, stretching in spite of her thick jacket.  She takes out a pen, and writes her observations of the day.

Geometry teachers can’t be more than placebos.  That’s just human nature.  They can’t magnify what’s invisible, nor can I magnify for you how many sides I count when I see a sphere. All I know is that its one sphere. How many sides do you see?