Imaginary Friends

by John Marco

  Ian gazed at her quizzically. “What is wrong?”

  She sighed again. “Evan Lord. Huge bestseller. I’ll never get there. I’ll probably never even get published.”

  “Why not?”

  “It seems like every idea I ever had shows up in an Evan Lord novel before I even have a chance to write it down. And how can I write something so—so big? You know, with the huge cast of characters and multilayered themes?”

  “I don’t know,” Ian said, “but you just proved how powerful your imagination is. Can’t you out-imagine this Evan Lord?”

  “You mean like a duel?”

  “Dueling is illegal,” Ian replied, all rigid again. “I mean, just write a better story.”

  “If only it were so easy. If only I could just write a different story. But all my ideas seem to pop up in his books.”

  Ian was flipping through the novel again. On the back cover was a black and white photo of Evan Lord with that smug expression of his, and with his slightly mussy sweep of hair and tweed jacket that looked just oh-so-bohemian. It was as if he were gazing right back at her and saying, “You’re a loser. Look at me, the famous author!”

  “You seem very sad,” Ian said. “I am your friend. Do you want to talk about it?”

  Justine almost barked out a sardonic laugh, but there was Ian, sitting beside her with that earnest expression of his, and she found herself pouring out her hopes and dreams, of how when she was little, she wanted to do something important and interesting when she grew up. She was one of those kids who always had her nose stuck in a book, so it was natural she aspired to be a writer.

  She told Ian of how she wrote stories from an early age, how no one in her family understood her, of how other kids made fun of her for being quiet. And always, she took comfort in her favorite books and her own writing, escaping the difficulties of her life. Many of her best friends had been fictional characters: Henry and Ribsy, the Black Stallion, Nancy Drew, Bilbo the Hobbit . . .

  Now that she’d grown up, she found herself to be a disappointment without much to show for her life except a mediocre job. She cried as she explained how crushing it was that she could no longer seem to write. There were all those books in the stores and libraries, but none were destined to have her name on them. She was a failure.

  By the time she finished, she was exhausted, and the light bleeding through her blinds had dimmed. Ian remained unmoving throughout, a thoughtful expression on his face.

  “You are somebody,” he said, “a real person. You weren’t made in China, and you do not have to make up your past. And I am a witness to your creativity. Why not reimagine your future?”

  Oolong yawned. Justine yawned. She was wrung out, and reimagining her future sounded tiring, like too much work, and yet there was wisdom in the suggestion.

  Like the daylight, Justine began to fade; her last recollection before falling asleep was of Ian pulling the covers up to her shoulders.

  As she slept, she felt as if she were in some eternal struggle, a tug-o-war to hold onto her dreams. The images tried to come her, to speak to her, to entertain her subconscious, but a huge, roiling vortex sucked them away, ripped them right out of her mind and into the black hole at its center. It slurped the forest of towering wedding cakes she’d been walking through; inhaled the parade of pink and green ponies, and the little bunnies hopping behind. She tried to cling to them, but they slipped inexorably, and totally, from her grasp, until nothing remained, not even a smear of frosting or a bunny trail.

  Then she thought she heard someone calling her name.

  “Justine!”

  “Ian?” she mumbled, her mouth pasty and sour.

  “Justine—help! Wake up!”

  Her Mountie was calling for help? That couldn’t be right. She opened her eyes, but the vertigo was back something fierce, and someone was standing over her. Her heart bumped in her chest—it wasn’t Ian, and she knew it because this someone was wearing cologne and tweed. She wanted to scream, but the stench of the cologne and the vertigo combined made her sick and she vomited over the side of the bed.

  “Shit,” that someone said.

  In the glow of her night light, it appeared she’d vomited on his expensive Italian shoes. “Who are you?” she gasped, fearing what the intruder intended and wishing desperately she had a phone at hand to call 911. She’d never make it to the hall phone. She should’ve told Liz to lock the door on her way out earlier.

  She glimpsed her intruder just enough through cracked eyelids to identify him, before the swirling room forced her to close them.

  “Evan Lord?” she croaked in incredulity.

  “The one and only. Now, if you would hold still. I should be done in a moment.”

  “Done? Done with what?”

  “Justine!”

  It was Ian again, and his voice sounded faint. Justine opened her eyes once more to find him flickering and fading at the foot of her bed. “What the—?”

  “He’s stealing your dreams,” Ian said. “You must hold onto them, or I’ll disappear!”

  Justine steeled herself and looked back at Evan Lord. He was his bohemian self, with a lock of hair hanging off his forehead just so, his collar open. He was waving something over her head. A wand? It glinted golden in the illumination of her night light. No, it looked more like a—like a fountain pen. She reached for it, but she missed and fell back into her pillows, the world spinning.

  “You’ve gotten feisty,” Evan Lord said. “Usually you just sleep through this.”

  Justine moaned. “This is not real. It can’t be.”

  “Unlike your Mountie friend, I am very real, and so is the magic of the Golden Pen. You and the pen have made me a very rich man.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Justine!” Ian cried, his voice now distant. “Fight back!”

  Ian. Her dreams. Her imagination . . . Evan Lord had been stealing from her all this time. No wonder she’d had to put her writing aside. No wonder she’d felt so desolate and stuck at a job she despised.

  And how icky it was to think of him coming into her bedroom at night!

  “Just relax,” Evan Lord said in a cajoling voice.

  “I’ve a deadline looming for the current work-in-progress, so I’ve had to make extra visits. Sorry it’s made you dizzy. This will be over soon, and you won’t remember a thing.”

  As he waved the Golden Pen over her, she felt lulled back toward sleep, toward giving away her dreams . . .

  Ian. Her friend, Ian. She didn’t want to lose him. If Evan Lord claimed him, he’d just go back to being a painted metal toy made in China. She would have no memory of him as her friend. She jammed her eyes shut and concentrated—concentrated on Ian and his scarlet coat, that hat of his, his square chin and blue eyes . . .

  The vortex tried to claim the image, and it started to blur, scarlet and blue and brown running together. She focused on making it stop, tried to redefine the image.

  “Now, now,” Evan Lord said. “If you keep that up, I’ll have to bring in Mister Dark, and you won’t like what Mister Dark will do to the Mountie.”

  Mister Dark? Justine peeped one eye wide open. Evan Lord was glaring down at her, and Ian was no longer faded out.

  “You can’t have Ian,” Justine said. “He’s my friend.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” Evan Lord replied. “I warned you.”

  A shadow congealed on the floor next to him and grew into the shape of a man, a man in a black fedora and trench coat. His face remained shadowed. This must be Mister Dark. He reminded Justine of a gangster, or possibly a Washington lobbyist. Ian reached for his sidearm, but the figure in shadow pulled out a weapon of his own from beneath his overcoat—a Tommy gun.

  “Tell your Mountie to stand down,” Evan Lord said, “or Mister Dark will fill him with lead.”

  “I am made of lead,” Ian said.

  “Hah! That will not stop figurative bullets.”

  “There will be no shooting in my bedroom!” Justi
ne cried. “Figurative or not,” she added.

  Ian’s hand still hovered over his holster.

  “Then relax,” Evan Lord said, “and let the Golden Pen do its work. I need more royalties, and a movie deal, too. I need to keep the missus happy, and there’s a little silver Porsche I have my eye on.”

  “Never,” Justine said, but he practically shoved the Pen in her face and the whirling of her room left her breathless. She tried to focus on Ian again, tried to make him solid in her mind so she wouldn’t lose him, wouldn’t give in to the thief, Evan Lord.

  Mister Dark still aimed his Tommy gun at Ian. Ian flexed his fingers above the butt of his revolver. Was Mister Dark something from her mind, or a creation of Evan Lord’s? Would she have created so bald a metaphor?

  It took her only half a moment to realize that Evan Lord wasn’t even capable of that much, that Mister Dark must have come from her basic store of archetypes, raw and unrefined. Evan Lord had taken him from her and used him as his own minion.

  Ian grabbed his revolver and tugged it from his holster.

  Mister Dark pulled the trigger on his Tommy gun.

  “No bullets!” Justine cried.

  Bubbles burped out of the muzzle of the Tommy gun instead.

  Ian aimed and fired his revolver, but it had turned into a power drill.

  Both of them looked at their weapons.

  Then Mister Dark tossed his Tommy gun aside and pulled a hand grenade out of his trench coat pocket. Justine concentrated as hard as she could. Mister Dark threw the grenade, and as it sailed through the air toward Ian, it transformed into an egg. It hit Ian’s chest with a splotch! Ian looked at the egg yolk dripping down his front.

  “You can’t do that!” Evan Lord cried, his face turning red with anger. “You can’t tell Mister Dark what to do!”

  “He’s mine,” Justine said, and before the shadow man could produce yet another weapon, she reimagined him into a new form. He grew still and solid. The pleasant scent of chocolate wafted from him. Dark chocolate.

  “No! No! No!” Evan Lord cried. He raised the Golden Pen as if to stab her with it.

  Oolong hissed beside her. She imagined him as a giant cat once again, and was immediately swamped by his tail. He knocked Evan Lord to the floor, and the Golden Pen went flying. Ian dove after it.

  When Justine returned Oolong to his proper size, he sat on Evan Lord’s chest hissing, and swiped his face with bared claws.

  “OW!” Evan Lord cried, along with other words not suitable for print.

  Oolong switched his tail back and forth and, using Evan Lord’s belly as a springboard, leaped back onto the bed. His part done, he curled up among the blankets and licked his paw.

  Justine wobbled out of bed and stood over Evan Lord. If she puked on him again, it was his own stupid fault. “You will leave now,” she commanded him with as much authority as she could muster. Her pink pajamas with the sheep and the armpit hole sort of ruined the effect.

  “My pen,” he said with a moan, “I need the Golden Pen, or I’m ruined.” He got onto his hands and knees and crawled around the floor searching for it. It was pathetic, really. Ian, who held the pen behind his back, winked at her. She removed the egg yolk from his scarlet coat with a thought.

  “Get out or I’ll call the police,” Justine told Evan Lord. When he did not listen, she grabbed the tome of his Ian had been looking at earlier, Queen of Tombs, and whapped him on the head with it.

  Evan Lord ran whimpering from her bedroom, with dust bunnies clinging to his knees, and out of her apartment. Justine staggered after him, through her apartment, and to the entry. She slammed the door shut and triple locked it.

  Ian followed her out and held the Golden Pen before her. “This is yours now. What will you do with it?”

  Justine smiled.

  It had been a long time since Justine last sat in the café at Bookwoods with her pad of paper on the table before her. Liz—her hair a vibrant green today— brought over a mocha latte, set it before her, and took a seat.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Liz said.

  “Tons. The vertigo went away just like the doctor said it would.”

  “Hey, did you hear the latest about Evan Lord?”

  Justine smiled and nodded as she sprinkled some cinnamon onto her latte. “Yeah. I read he quit fiction and is going on a speaking tour. Something about how to make millions on the dreams of others.”

  Liz chuckled. “I imagine he’ll make even more money with the lectures than he did with his books.”

  It was true. Justine had seen him driving around town in the newest addition to his fleet: a silver Porsche. She had considered turning him into the police for home invasion (she didn’t think they’d believe her about the imagination stealing stuff), but she thought maybe without the Golden Pen he’d been rendered impotent, and the loss of his writing career was enough of a punishment. She hoped so, anyway.

  “So how are things at Nuts & Bolts?” Liz asked.

  Justine grinned. “You are looking at the new managing editor. The position comes with a raise. The magazine has been picked up by Giganta Media Corp, so there’s a chance I might be transferred to their book publishing division.” She reimagined her future, just as Ian suggested she should, and so had updated her resume and presented it to the editor-in-chief of Giganta Books. Didn’t mean she’d get the job, but at least she was trying.

  “Fantastic!” Liz cried. “Congrats. Consider this latte on me.”

  “Thanks,” Justine replied.

  Liz rose from her chair. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said, and she started to walk away, but paused and turned back to Justine. “How’s Ian?”

  “Ian?”

  “Yeah, your imaginary friend.”

  “Oh, he’s gone up north—back to Quebec. Decided to take up a hobby.”

  “Hockey?”

  Justine shook her head.

  “Curling?”

  “Nope.”

  “Er, what else do they do up there?”

  Justine sighed. “He said something about a sudoku tournament.”

  “Oh, you’ll never see him again,” Liz said.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I lent my guy, Sven, to a friend. He’s a masseur, you know. I haven’t seen him in months!”

  “Your imaginary friend is a masseur?”

  “Of course.” With a toss of green hair, Liz wandered off between the tables, humming a tune as she headed into the bookstore section of Bookwoods.

  “Huh,” Justine said. She thought she should try conjuring up a masseur. That could be very useful.

  For now, however, she was content to sit in the café, with its aroma of coffee and spices, and the murmuring voices of other patrons and soft jazz music in the background. Out the window pedestrians hurried by on the sidewalk and cars rumbled down the street, as though they existed on an entirely different plane than she in the café.

  Her pad of paper sat before her empty of words, and she uncapped her ordinary black gel pen to begin anew on her manuscript. She could use the Golden Pen if she wished, but she would not do to others as Evan Lord did to her, so she locked it away in a safe deposit box and hoped to forget where she hid the key. Besides, she did not need the Pen and its magic, thanks to Ian helping her to restore her faith in her own imagination.

  She had to admit the Golden Pen was an intriguing object, and maybe one day she’d try to learn more about its origins and properties. If magic was truly alive in her own mundane world in the form of so small an artifact, wasn’t it reasonable to expect there were more such objects out there? Searching for them could be a whole new, grand adventure.

  The mysteries of the Golden Pen, however, were for another day. Right now she was more interested in rediscovering her own inner magic. Maybe she wouldn’t earn the big bucks without the Pen’s help, and maybe she wouldn’t even get published, but now she had the confidence to try. If she could breathe so much life into an imaginary fri
end, it seemed her chances were tolerable.

  With a smile, she applied the first words to paper in black flowing ink.

  SUBURBAN LEGEND

  Donald J. Bingle

  MICHAEL knew that he shouldn’t dwell on them, that he should let them go. He had better, more important, things to think about, to worry about, to resolve, like the fate of his eternal soul. But they rattled through his brain, interrupting everything he did, every bit of his concentration. When he brushed his teeth, his mind was otherwise unoccupied, and they screamed, whirling through his head, throbbing to the rhythm of the downward strokes, peppering him with doubt and self-loathing.

  He focused hard, trying desperately to remember when his descent into this hellhole of confusion and madness had all begun. Three years, three long years ago, was the obvious answer, but he knew that was a lie. Others hadn’t seen it, hadn’t known, but it had begun months, almost a year earlier than that, and in the most innocent way.

  Wow, Michael thought, Jennifer is really looking hot these days. Her smile is brighter, her curves are curvier, and her latest haircut is really cute. He was pretty sure that dress was new, too, with a shorter hemline and a more daring neckline than what she usually wears. He should say something. He overheard her tell Barb once that he didn’t compliment her enough. He should speak up.

  “Gee, honey, uh . . . you’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”

  Jennifer stared at him with the same look of disgust tempered by enforced tolerance that one would give a small child who had just peed himself in front of company.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Michael scrambled to find the right words, the words that would convey what his mind had intended, the words that would make this not become yet another of their more and more frequent and heated arguments.

  “I . . . uh . . . mean you look good . . . uh . . . thinner. You had gotten a bit chunky there for awhile.”

  Those were not the words.

  “You could stand to lose a few pounds, yourself, buster.”

  “Uh . . . sure . . . I mean, yeah, we’ve both porked up a bit since we got married. I was just trying to say that I like your new look, I mean you haven’t shown so much cleavage or worn such a short skirt in . . . since we were dating.”