this will be a short film.
Breath ran out of lungs as if someone pricked the two balloons underneath my ribcage. I was wheezing these ginger ale inhales that burned my throat. Nothing worked. I couldn’t catch it. I watched the air float upwards and all I could do was outstretch my arms to the moon watching pockets of air retreat just out of reach from sweaty palms. Like a sucker punch that pummels the wind out of you. My flashlight began to flicker and fade. A blanket of dark occupied the ground that I stood and poured over my body before my eyes could adjust. And there was darkness. It happened in twelve swift and holy seconds. The only real evidence that I existed was that I knew. I knew I was real.
And this wasn’t the first time.
I experience these episodes every once and a while that I imagine would feel something like dying. I’m not sure, I’ve never been dead and I don’t know anyone who has. But man, what an adventure. The idea of nothingness is something I could spend an afternoon thinking about. My disappearances, however frequent, are calming now. He calls the shots, but what can you do? Nothin. You never asked to be here, but look at you now! You don’t seem to ever want to go.
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The nature of childhood makes it easily acceptable to be strange. You are not bound to any requirements to know differently. A few years to indulge blissfully in the splendor of the yard, the hot sun peeling at your pale skin, lacking the functioning memory to protect you, once again, from finding your way home from a good wander. We feast on treats for dinner and learn that sugar is a fuel that is insatiable, and we are entirely okay with that. Our stick legs run at optimal speed. We know the color of our own blood, and no matter how gruesome the gash, we revel in the marks and badges of pretend war. We have yet to feel the sting of ridicule or humiliation. We are free!
And we have friends, plenty of them. They are birthed from the depths of our minds to remedy the premature loneliness we foster. We are still young, these feelings are feelings described only by words we’ve yet to learn. So we invent company, eternally fascinated by our schemes. They go home when we tell them to. I’ve heard about some that refuse to leave, those are the kinds you hear about in spooky stories. The ones that hide in your closets and bad dreams. I’ve yet to have the misfortune of seeing one for myself.
Jenni started coming around sometime last winter. She talks fast and soft. I would sit next to her watching her lips move fast, nodding politely, with the quiet understanding that whatever she said was brilliant, fascinating, hilarious. She would talk until she ran out of things to say. She was really smart. The longer she stuck around, the more audible her words would become. When she came into my room the walls would leak with the smell of rain, so pungent that it would coat my skin, stick to the insides of my sweaters and eyelids. I never told her that she smelled that way. I think it’s because I’d often find myself idle and indoors during rainstorms, but in my mind, thoughts and ideas would dance, wild and unabashed. They’d fidget and rumble until I just had to draw them, write them, shout them out. So after a particularly dreary storm, there she was. Sometimes even I would forget that she wasn’t real.
I didn’t want to tell her that. She seemed to like it here.
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I am real. I’ll prove it to you. If I had any breath left to breathe I’d give you a giant exhale and it’d blow out like a cloud of smoke in this ungodly temperature. Let me stay a little while longer this time and I’ll tell you the most spectacular story.
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The summer just before first grade I would imagine Jenni everyday with the exception of that one day when I had to wear that unbecoming suit to my grandpas funeral. I didn’t want her around because everyone was so sad and I think I was sad too. Most days, we’d go to the trails that lined my backyard. I dreamt that the fences were like sleepy guards that let us jump on their shoulders and climb down their backs. We’d play hide & seek. I must have look like a fool out there, flying from tree to tree, making noises that roared from my belly to my throat, emitting ferocious sounds through my nostrils. Crawling like an animal, stealth-like. Then hiding as stoic as a tree. Jenni could’ve just disappeared, but she never did. As my only friend, and with no previous comparison, I’d still say with reasonable confidence, she was the best.
Attempts to dilute my very obvious strangeness, mostly administered by my father by way of television or subtle suggestions to play with the neighbors only made me want to stick my fingers in my ears, shout ‘lalalala’ and be alone. It didn’t matter, with the daylight running out and the wind starting to bite I knew the season was unraveling. Then there was that queasy feeling in my stomach, you know that feeling when something’s about to change? When you’re my age, change is the death of all things you know to be safe. Everything was perfect just the way it was. But school was on it’s way. It would be my first year. I would be thrown into the pit of screaming and giggling children slapping jump rope on hot pavement lined with chalk. In the hierarchy of grade school, it is imperative to choose your friends wisely, because of some nonsensical method, the ones you choose first are with you to the grave. That’s what my brothers say.
I’ve got to say goodbye to Jenni. The sharp tongues of children are about as fierce as lions, so I’d be best not to make a sound or appear odd. Like I said, degrees of strangeness are common among children but no one has imaginary friends in grade school. What is the need? There are names to memorize and snacks to trade. There’s a whole world to explore, and such a world needs real hands and fleshy fingers. I suppose there is ease in knowing that she was a product of my own invention. But she was still my friend.
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I don’t know if I can last much longer, what’s the big idea? We never even finished the game. I still have to see if you could do that handstand and hold it for more than five seconds. I bet you couldn’t.
Did he tell you that I don’t really exist? I have a thinking brain that thinks thoughts. Feelings too! I’m afraid of the dark, I’m afraid of the air in the atmosphere being sucked out by a giant straw, what if it happens? It feels like I’m stepping on pins and needles, my feet are asleep. Remember when I used to jump on your feet when that happened? Your knees would buckle and you’d fall down. What a sight! But as I stand here in the dark this sensation is rising and rising and my whole body is prickling. See ya around.
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Jenni never came back. I never asked her to. I bet she would’ve if I asked her nice enough. I can’t even remember what she looks like anymore. I tried drawing a picture and I always got her nose wrong.
