imaginary friend
Years before I read Peter Pan when I was less than 4ft tall I had an imaginary friend. Without wings, he could fly into my bedroom at night while my unsuspecting family carried-on their downstairs life-after-my-bedtime. Unlike Peter pan, John wore ordinary clothes: flared corduroy jeans, t-shirt, jumper and daps. You could easily miss noticing John in a crowd of shorter children. John had an ordinary quiet, thoughful, way about him. His silences matched mine. He was good company.
John could fly right through the force-field that protected me from the monsters beyond the wardrobe. The force-field that looked like bedroom walls but was infact protection that moved with me as I travelled through planet Wendy. John knew how to co-pilot the big red double-decker bus, the bus that was cunningly disguised as my single bed. Unlike my real friends John didn’t scream or throw the extra pillow at the slimey poison-tongued Lizards that chased the bus. John could use his powers of flight to lift the bus out of the swamp. John was magic, he could corale the heard of wild unicorns into the wardrobe without saying a single word. He was my secret, special friend.
John stopped joining my evenings when, in my teens, evening adventures moved into the world beyond my parents home. I wonder if John’s still out there, whether he grew up or maybe became someone real.
Sometimes I miss him
Sometimes
April 29th, 2009
Don’t worry, John is probably making friends with my horse and my little dog called Candy. I don’t think they’ll get lonely.
Sx
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April 29th, 2009
He’ll be in the rest home for imaginary friends: an agreeably-huge house by the sea with mile-long well-polished bannisters, Tizer on tap, thistles by the river and all the trees you could ever climb. He’ll be surrounded by other familars who would join him for picnics and high tea and who’d be around for foolish japes with carboard boxes and bedsheets and old pram wheels.
Lucky bastard. (sigh)
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April 29th, 2009
Sigh. I bet they’re not missing us.
Sx
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April 29th, 2009
when I’m reincarnated I want to come back as someone’s imaginary friend, and hang out in the imaginary friend retirement home with the magic people and animals
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April 30th, 2009
My imaginary friend left me for someone with more imagination.
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May 1st, 2009
Rob, you can borrow one of imaginary friends, it gets a bit croweded here, though I have to warn you they are a bit fickle…
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