Irene, My dead best friend [Wattys 2015]

Irene, My dead best friend

Chapter 1: Freaky deaky

Life, it’s such a simple word,

Yet, it’s so full of dimension.

Life, it has a beginning and an end.

Life, so full of laughter and life,

Yet, burdened with sorrow and death.

It’s an odd thing, life I mean. There are so many aspects and turns to it, there is just no way, you could fathom any of it. Growing up, I knew I was probably the craziest kid on the block. Not in the weird, snot-eating, creeping people out sort of way but mostly in the I-can-feel-another-presence-besides-me kind of way.

I had always felt it. That presence. I remember it dawning on me when I was about five and barely coherent about my surroundings. You know, when you’re a kid, your surroundings are the least of your concerns. You’re more engrossed in that little cockroach you found down by the road instead of if there was anyone down the road watching you….in silence.

But then slowly, I believe around my fifth birthday (didn’t I already mention that? Either way,) exactly about the time I was blowing out the candles of my Batman birthday cake (yes, I was a cool kid), I felt someone pat my back in acknowledgment. One of those, “good job, you’re all grown up” kind of pat on the back. I turned around, only to find an empty wall behind me because all my friends and family were standing on my opposite side, taking pictures and singing the birthday song. Obviously I ignored that, hell there was a Batman cake just waiting for me to stab my knife through its chest, pat on the back, cold air…I couldn’t care any less.

Time passed and these small occurrences grew and I guess I got used to them. Always having a lingering presence by my side, a heavy weight just floating by me as I walked, it was the norm for me. I still wonder to date why I never mentioned it to my parents. I guess it was probably because they wouldn’t believe me, or would have had me committed to some institution and I wasn’t having any of that.

I grew up with it, right up to the time I hit seventeen. That was when I guess you could say I stepped into the big league of action. Yep, I started to see things. I know it sounds like I’m still taking this pretty easy but you have to understand that I am absolutely used to this by now; I wasn’t frightened, freaked out or anything of the sort. In fact, it only intrigued me enough to see just how much I could expose myself to this….other side? It is difficult to say what it was; it was like this thinly, veiled world which I believe was trying to make contact with me, which I’m assuming is the part where they keep attempting to touch me. As a consequence, I’ve spent countless hours in my public library and on the internet, trying to figure out what this phenomenon was.

Turns out, I’m the phenomenon. A medium, they call it. I still find it quite hard to believe so I haven’t fully embraced the title. Hence, we are going to not mention it ever again.

Anyway, so yeah, I was talking about the big league. Bam! just like that, I turned seventeen, was utterly incompetent when it came to girls, playing sports was like absolute torture, but my only source of elation turned out to be reading and a nice stroll by myself in the woods. The woods outside my house where I spent countless hours under my favorite tree, never bothering to see anyother part of it.You must understand, it was pretty huge, the trees went on as far as the eyes could see. But that didn't concern me. I prefered my tree and my books, just sitting there all day, occasionally joined my Rufus, the cat that came and went as it wanted. So yea the woods were great but what's more significant about them is the fact that....

That’s where I met Irene.