Imagination Game
On the ground.
On my back.
I am staring at the celling.
Losing myself in its milky depths.
I see things on the celling.
Scary things.
The caves of monsters their horror unknown.
A city of faceless people walking in misery.
Funny things.
Circuses where clowns watch ordinary people go about their lives.
Huge beings of many parts falling to pieces because of only one malfunction.
Beautiful things.
A forest of enormous trees all lush and green.
Golden apples, which incite one to touch.
I reach.
I touch.
They are at the perfect height.
All this I see in a patch of white.
To my eyes.
It seems infinite.
A disturbance.
I am wrenched out of my reverie.
Anger.
Who would dare interrupt me?
Oh, it’s Suzzy.
Peeking out from under the bed.
First her head then her long neck.
She is a giraffe.
She is my best friend.
Suzzy asks if I want to play.
I accept.
We go into her home underneath my bed.
We play.
Board games, sport-games, videogames, toy-games, imagination-games.
No game is spared.
After a time I tire, it is getting late.
I say my goodbyes and make the trek back to my bed.
I am ready to sleep.
Buba awaits me next to my pillow.
He is fuzzy and about half my size.
We go under the covers as boy and stuffed bear.
Once under, we change.
We are now two brave knights in shining armor protecting our castle.
Protecting our castle from them, the monsters.
Oh they are gruesome.
Mutant carrots, giant mice, smiling dragons, dancing clowns…
They all want their turn in the castle.
We will not allow that.
To that end, we fight.
It is not a boast when I say we hacked, slashed and kicked the stuffing out of them.
The only monsters that remain are we.
Only the tree people and we.
Little is known of the tree people.
They come out at night.
They walk to my window.
They watch.
If they should ever come in their fate is that of the monsters.
I hope they never come in.
They scare me.
Unnatural creatures.
Blasphemy to nature.
Oh they scare me.
Horrendous screeching language.
Perverted artificial laughter.
The very thought of them terrorizes me.
Makes me freighted.
Sets my spine a tingle.
Ice in my veins.
Body encased in concrete.
Artic streams down my back.
A degenerate smile on my face.
An unhealthy giggle out my maw.
I dissolve into vile laughter.
I am shaken out of my fit.
It’s my mother.
She is alarmed.
Her eyes wide as platters.
Says she found me staring at the celling laughing.
I tell her not to fret as I was merely playing an imagination-game.
This I say for she would not understand.
Tree people, knights, mutant carrots, giant mice, smiling dragons, dancing clowns, Suzzy.
To her only a collection of toys and fantasies.
To me my entire world.
Today I stared at the celling and saw naught but a patch of white.
Remembered shadows of a distant past.
A past of castles, tree people, fiends, and friends.
All part of an imagination-game.
All far away.
All out of reach.
All too high, untouchably high.
One might even say that the distance is never ending.
Infinite.
