Review: Curtis wants a friend all his own
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 30, 2011
When I was very young, I had an imaginary friend called Mary Ann. Despite all the trouble my friend got into, I like to think of her as being benign and kind, and only as deep as I imagined her to be, but after reading this short story, I'm now looking at Mary Ann in a different light. For small children, these friends can seem very real. For the girl in this tale, her little friend is called Curtis, and he's always telling Roni what to do or say. Roni's mom is already on the paranoid side and is over-protective of her child, but maybe she has cause to be.For my own personal reasons, this story does have the creep factor going for it. It made me consider what happens when the imagined becomes unimagined and all too real. What happens when an invisible friend becomes a tangible threat, when malevolent intentions are no longer disguised as a sympathetic playmate? From the all-knowing Curtis to the stalking long-face man, this story set up a pleasant feeling of unease, culminating with a stab of emotional horror that would strike at the heart of any parent.