Active Imagination

When I was a kid, I had a really active imagination. I would create scenarios in my head, think of characters on the spot, and make up a story to my younger sister as she drifted off to sleep… I just presumed I had a talent for it. My parents smiled as I began using my talents for the creative pieces of work I brought home from school. Paintings, stories, songs filed onto a compact disk… And my mother would hold me close and whisper into my ear;
“You have an excellent gift Terry.” And that gift stuck with me all my life.
In elementary school I didn’t really have many friends, so I’d make them up. On the spot. I had a new one everyday. Then I’d sketch them into one of my books. The kids would laugh at me but I didn’t care. I had my mind, and it was my friend. I sat alone, and talk to the characters I had imagined out of nothing. They had different personalities also. Teachers would smile whenever I walked passed them.
“How’s your imagination going?”
“Good,” I would reply, “Frank has played with me today.”
“That’s nice sweetie. Now off to class.”
That’s all I basically remember from those days, apart from my adventures with my mind. But in high school, I met a girl. I had never made any… Real friends before so I was incredibly shy. I walked over to her and started to talk
“Hey there, I’m Terry.” I smiled at her, ignoring my imaginary friends’ sneers and giggles behind me. I never really grew out of my imagination.
“Well I’m Janet,” she said in a sweet tone. “Want to be friends?”
From that moment on, I spent most of my days with Janet. My imaginary friends soon left, disappeared and were lost from my memory. But I had a friend. Not a fake friend, a real one. A friend I could actually talk to, to actually play with.
We dated for a few years, after leaver’s exams of course. We had the same job, we lived with one another, we had all the time we needed with one another. Then, when I was twenty-one, I proposed to her. As I hoped, she said yes.
For the next six months we planned our wedding, and a few days before the wedding, Janet talked to me.
“After we get married, can we go somewhere?” She asked.
“Yes,” I said happily, “I’ve always wanted to go to France. Do you want to go there?”
“France it is!” She replied happily. Hugging me tightly. Then, the walls of the room we were in started to turn white. Painfully white. Like no white I had ever seen!
The furniture started to dissolve into nothing, the lights disappeared and I grabbed Janet and I rushed to the door. As I put my handle on the knob and turned it… I took a look back. The room was empty, only Janet and I were inside. The walls were padded with pillows and there was a bed in the corner. I looked at Janet, she looked back at me. Then she started to disappear, softly at first but started to go faster, and faster. I tried to reach out for her but my arms were stuck inside a jacket. I pulled and pulled and pulled but it was no use. I watched her disappear. My love, my life, my only friend. Gone. Leaving me in this empty room, a prison. An… an asylum.
What can I say? I have a really active imagination.
Category:Mental Illness