Everyone is Someone's Imaginary Friend.

Imaginary friends have always been part of our family. My brother was this guy Anthony's imaginary friend for years.  We called the whole thing off when Anthony was carted off in a straight jacket because he opened the closet and found my brother hiding behind the vacuum cleaner.  I told my brother he was too real, and completely sucked at being invisible.  Anthony could not believe he wasn't imaginary.  It destroyed him.   He felt so cheated and unspecial knowing that we could all see him.  I tried to cheer him up by telling him we didn't want to see him and that if he wanted I would take my brother out into the woods and hide him better so that no-one would ever find him.  It was too late.  You can't unsee those damn live bodies.  They are littered everywhere we go.

I told my brother he sucked at being invisible and he should probably just move far away to save the family the profound shame we all felt now that he had failed.

I Have No Choice.

 

I could see a pet bat. 

I would like to accidently let it out and I would sit in a lawn chair moved over right to the edge of the property line, with my "Music to Clog By" turned up full blast.  I would eat chocolates and sip champagne and watch the neighbours try to run away from it, batting at it with their hands and screaming.  Then, when it would finally latch onto one of their necks I would look up and try to call it home.  I would say  "Murgenheimer  Muuuuurgenheeeeeiiiiimer.  Come here Murgeheimer.  Stop bothering the neighbours now."   But of course, my bat would not come. 

Partly because I would have trained it to ignore me but mainly because it's name would not be "Mergenheimer."

Angels Among Us

I saw an angel once. 

His name was Bill and he lived in a box under the overpass near the car dealership.

I didn't know he was an angel at first.  I met him one day when I was running away from home.  I stopped to eat one of my sandwiches and he was just sitting there, next to the town grain elevator, watching me.  So, I offered him the other half of the sandwich.

He asked what I was doing and I told him I was running away from home.  He didn't believe me, he said, " . . . you aren't running, your legs aren't even moving."  I realized he was right.  I was sitting there eating a sandwich.  He knew stuff like that.  He said I wasn't really committed to the whole running away thing and I should save myself for the right time.   He said it really forceful, like it was a commandment.   And when I turned my head, a whole field was on fire.  Moses only had a burning bush, this dude had a whole field.  I got goose bumps.

It's A Whole Freaking Rainbow Out There

For the longest time when I was growing up I thought I was magical.

It wasn't just about thinking I could fly, or that Santa was real, or there actually were fairies that drank out of the bluebells at night while we slept . . . I believed I had gifted sight.

I saw colour.

If you consider TV's were black and white, I could not believe that was how everyone else saw the world.  I could see colour.  It made me really sad for the rest of mankind.  So I spent most of the years between 3 - 8 weeping for them.  I realized colours, for them, was just names written on Crayola's.  They could pick up "yellow" for the sun and "blue" for the sky but it was all just grey and rainy.