Casual Apparitions (1) I didn’t want to go home. I was perfectly content with the house we had moved to, as decrepit and nondescript as it was. I liked the skeletal trees with their seemingly morose nature, I liked the flyers that littered the pavement like forgotten first dates, I had even grown to like the ugly red brick building that stood in the middle of the square. Most of all I liked the symbolism of the place, which may have been the reason mum had concluded I was depressed and got me the hell out of there. Her exact words were “It isn’t good for you to be here. It’ll turn you morbid,” followed by a swift dismissal of any protests I may have had. She thought I was in love with sadness or something, which I suppose was just a little too close the truth, but didn’t warrant the uprooting and returning to the place of candy-tinted nightmares. My old house was horrible in an entirely different sense. It was spacious, and open-plan, with perfectly cut gardens and a little wrought iron fence. It was serviceable, and it was reputable and, as I had been told far too many times: it was nice. I hate that word to the point where the sentence doesn’t even deserve a capital. It’s a statement of defeat, nothing more. If something is nice it is sure to be devoid of even the slightest drop of substance. Nice is a waiting room where all the magazines are two years old. Nice is a church hall where the old lady sweeping up was too frail to get the dust from the corners. Nice are the plastic children’s’ toys left abandoned on park benches. And now I had to go live in the nice house which, for all its charm and marble effect countertops had never felt like home, and I couldn’t help but indulge in a little teenage sulk in the backseat as we drove there. At 15, I felt it was justified, owing to the fact that soon I would be expected to outgrow such feeble methods of communication. And we drove. The first thing I did on arrival was claim my room back. I bolted to the attic taking stairs three at a time, threw my suitcase down at my feet and promptly collapsed face first into my bed. I waited there for a few minutes, listening to the footsteps of my parents and sister slowly still, and figured they had all settled into their individual routine. “Okay,” I muttered “guess I’ll have to get used to it here.” “So it would seem, but getting used to is not the same as getting comfortable. Don’t get complacent.” Yes. 15 year old with a plethora of “imaginary” friends. At this exact moment, Far was lounging against the back wall, dressed in the usual tailcoat, band tee and winkle pickers ensemble he swore made him a hit with the proverbial ladies. Yes, I was aware he wasn’t real. No, I did not care. “I’m not getting comfortable,” I confirmed “I’m getting out.” I felt this was a suitably sweeping and angsty thing to say. Far, from his place in the corner, merely raised an eyebrow. I sighed. “Are you aware there’s a mysterious envelope protruding in a very slight and subtle way from underneath your bed?” I was not, except perhaps in the sense that Far was a construct of mine, so I must have noticed on some level. But that was a theory that neither of us enjoyed thinking about. Instead, I let myself slide off the bed and onto the floor, only opening my eyes when I felt the cold of the wood begin to seep through my top. Sure enough, there was an envelope. It was cream, blank, and sealed with a single line of tape. It did indeed look… mysterious. I was of course tempted to open it, but something held me back. Something being either awe or an acute fear of pressure activated explosives. I held myself back. Far gave me a lazy look. It was challenge, albeit a very thinly veiled one. I was tempted to tell him to open it, but considering he was imaginary and teetering madly on the edge of being self-aware, asking him to do physical tasks was a soft spot. I was cruel, but not that cruel at least. “Should I open it?” “Without even the shadow of a doubt.” “It could be dangerous.” “Everything’s dangerous.” “I could die.” “Everyone does… Eventually.” I couldn’t argue with logic like that. I opened it. On the single sheet of paper were the following words: “I am leaving this here because I have to leave soon. Apparently there are people wishing to return to this house, and who am I to stand in their way? From what the landlord has said, they seem to be nice, clean-cute, conventional people. That is tiresome. However, I thought if there was anyone who wasn’t completely bland about to arrive, they certainly would frequent the attic, I know I did. So I am hoping that said interesting person is reading this, as opposed to some clean-freak distant aunt or interfering friend of a younger sibling. If you are neither the aunt nor the friend, congratulations, you are not as horrifically dull as this neigh-bourhood would prefer. Meet me at your favourite spot at lunch time Saturday. If I am as superb as I think I am, I am sure to meet you there. Regards,” Well sugar. That was an adventure gift wrapped and placed in plain sight. In fact, it was orchestrated so perfectly I was inclined to suspect some kind of trick, the imaginary friends often played tricks like that to test my fraying sanity. The plot would normally fall through when I realised the paper I was holding was blank, it was 3AM, and my lips were smeared with Buttercream. As no such thing had happened so far though, I was conflicted. Crossing the room with the letter still in my grasp, I sat down at the table that would once again serve as my desk. Leaving the majority of the furniture when we moved out temporarily had some benefits, such as the fact that the false bottom in the top left drawer was still intact. Inside it, the empty binder still resided, a tribute to when I kept my diary entries in the house, as opposed to as far away from discovery as possible. I tried to ignore Far’s eyes on me as I clipped the letter in and returned the folder to its hiding place. One of the perks of imaginary friends is that if you direct your attention elsewhere they start to blur a little at the edges, and then eventually start fadi- “So?” Oh. Maybe not then “What is it, Far darling?” I used my dryest tone. “Are you going to meet him?” I didn’t bother asking how he knew it was a boy in the same way I didn’t ask how he always knew random details about a person’s home #life at a look, or how he could warn me about injuries I would receive two days in advance. It was just another thing about him, he just knew things. Unlike me, who didn’t even know if was going to go meet this strange, oddly narcissistic sounding boy. “I’d be lying if I said I knew. Staying in this house will send me crazy, you know that, but meeting strangers? In the interest of self-preservation you should be warning me against it already.” Far continued lounging, arching his back away from the wall and scrubbing a hand across his eyes; I could only assume he was trying to appear disinterested. Idly, he pulled a rubber band from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers, eyes flicking to me sporadically. “It could be good for you I suppose. I only ask because I’m curious as to the guy’s character, but could easily go find out about him without being detected, should you decide to ignore him. That would be… Safer.” There are times when I love Far, but there are times when I want to hurl his semi-omnipotent self into a large bag of knives and assorted sherbets. Whenever he tried to tempt me with something because it is “safer”, the second emotion burst vividly to #life. He somehow got the false impression that just because I am grotesquely and immensely introverted and rarely venture outside I am afraid of danger. Not true. Danger is bridges and darkness and fire and knives, none of which have the power to frighten me. However people (or real people at least) are both frightening and wholly unappealing. They clamour and scream and cry and whine and the cacophony is too much to bear. Personally, I don’t understand why more people don’t turn to the imaginary kind for company, far more fulfilling. But it is a soft spot for me now; I cannot rid myself of the compulsion to commit dangerous acts, all in the interest of proving that endangering myself is not a scary thing. In retrospect, perhaps that is not healthy, but it is a habit I cannot kick. As long as I am alone, I can do anything. When I am alone, I am invincible. So Far deciding to dangle this opportunity in front of me like a piece of meat was not a very nice thing for him to do. Manipulating idiot. “You’ve forced my hand Far, you know you have. One problem though.” “Oh?” “I have no idea where I am meeting him.” I felt his attention shift from the rubber band to me, and turned to see the look of feigned contrition on his face. “I do believe he was quite specific about that…” “Yes, if by quite specific you mean not at all specific. My favourite place? That is both morbidly optimistic and incredibly presumptuous. I for one have no idea where my favourite place is. ” The following silence was one-sided not in the sense that one person was talking, but in the sense that one person was radiating a smugness louder and clearer than a thousand words. Quite impressive really, considering the person in question was imaginary. I was not about to give him the satisfaction of asking him if he knew where my favourite place was, if he wanted to tell me he would have to speak up of his own accord. I stood up, pushing my chair away from the desk where I had been sitting, and strode over to my suitcase, idling over the zip. Biting down my smile at how undoubtedly frustrating I was being, I began innocently stacking books onto my shelves, humming a verse from some long forgotten pop song and occasionally stopping to flip through the pages of one of my stories. I glanced backwards, quirked an eyebrow. Far straightened his cuffs and began smoothing his devastatingly perfect hair. The effect was heart-stoppingly beautiful of course, but it had very little effect. I was used to this trick. Back when we were dating it was his weapon of choice and I was able to resist his charm. He must have realised this because he changed tack. Hanging his head he dragged every word from behind his teeth, as though his defeat was causing him physical pain. “Would you like to know where your favourite place is?” he mumbled. I turned, feigning deafness. “Hmmm?” “I said, would you like to know where your favourite place is?” I turned away. “Not really.” “I THINK MAYBE YOU DO.” The caps lock was evident in the tone. “Do I?” “Yes.” I sighed dramatically, something I do exceptionally well considering the shy only child stigma. “Okay Far, where is my favourite place?” He grinned, and I swear I saw the devil dancing in his eyes. Well, it was either that or a winky face emoticon. “Not tellin.’”