My sweet children! My sour children! Hear me well, for I have dreams to sell! Sweet dreams! Sour dreams! And every DREAM in between! DREAMS so delicious your TASTEBUDS will SCREAM.
My tasty, brand new CANDY DREAMS is all the RAGE in Arcadia. But children, did you know there was a time when my candy bars were just candy dreams? I suppose everything great begins as a dream. Every great evil and every great good.
You can do lots of things to a dream. You can STAB it in the chest thirteen times until it’s no longer breathing and throw it in the Chocolate River. You can IGNORE it, never pursue it, and let it fade out of your mind until it was as though it never existed.
But do you know the worst thing you can do to a dream, children?
The worst thing you can do to a dream is let SOMEONE ELSE EAT IT.
In the lower levels of Arcadia, there exists a vile and dreadful Dream Eater.
He is a creature full of ambition, a creature who desires power. If you let him, he’ll steal your DREAMS right from your tongue and swallow it himself!
Because the Dream Eater learned long ago that the fastest way to become POWERFUL is to DEVOUR the DREAMS of another!
He is a TRICKSTER. He will promise you MONEY. He will say, “I will FINANCE your dream, and you can PAY me BACK later… With INTEREST.”
By the time it’s all said and done? He SWALLOWS your dreams WHOLE. And if you don’t pay him MORE money than you have?
He sends you down the Chocolate River.
Children, what do we say to the DREAM EATER who approaches us in the night and offers us MONEY to help us with our dreams?
We say, “NO!”
Because our DREAMS are our OWN. If anyone is to eat my dreams, it shall be ME. And no one should eat your dreams unless its YOU.
Do not let the Dream Eater intimidate you, for he is big and strong and DANGEROUS. Do not let the Dream Eater fool you, for he is clever and street-wise and CONNIVING.
Lastly, my children, hear this. Never, ever, become a DESPERATE DREAMER. The Dream Eater PREYS on desperate, like a DENTIST preys on your candy-coated TEETH. He YANKS them right out of their DESPERATE MOUTHS. He TAKES all their money, money they could spend on DREAMS, and leaves them with only NIGHTMARES.
But I am NOT desperate. I am a CONFECTION CONNOISSEUR, a DREAMER of DESSERTS. My DREAMS are my own to EAT.
But my DREAMS, now in sweet and sour flavors, can BELONG to YOU.
Go into your mother’s bag and take five dollars, and PURCHASE my DREAMS and make them YOURS. Show that DREAM EATER below that YOU and you alone can EAT your CANDY DREAMS.
And I will TEACH that DREAM EATER that when it comes to my CANDY DREAMS, only ONE MAN can eat them.
The Candy Man Can.