Just A Drag No One Wants To Inhale

Prologue: The Aftermath Is Secondary

***

Aren't imaginary friends the greatest  friends?

I mean, they're yours, essentially. Every thought or opinion that you have, they have the exact same one. If not, they make you see the flip-side of the coin.

It's eye-opening, truly.

My  imaginary friend never really changes...

The only thing that really changes with him is the way that he sits in that armchair in the corner of the room, whatever room that might be at the time. He's always in the corner, for some reason. I remember asking him why one day, and he told me that it was because he liked to see how things played out in that certain angle. He could see everything.

I try not to talk to him when out in public, but I nod or shake my head when he asks me a question. Very subtly though. It got better over time, everything does.

He's reading a book right now that he produced from thin air. The Catcher in the Rye. I hate that book. But he reads it all the time!

"Why do you read that book constantly?"  I asked him as I pointed at the book. "You've read it before, so you know what happens; what's the point in reading it if you know what happens?"

He shifted a little in his seat, crossing one leg over the other and looking at me from atop his cursed book. "Because," He sat up straight and set the book on the armchair. With another blink, it was gone again. He did that a lot - making things appear and disappear again. "The narrator, Holden, reminds me of you."

"Oh, why?"

"Well..." he considered this for a second, picking at a piece of thread at the hem of his Misfits: Fiend Walk Among Us  t-shirt. He loved music. A lot. He loved the kind of music that I did, so we never really got into arguments about what to play and when, because he always agreed with me. "He's kind of... Sarcastic, like you. And he picks up on weird thoughts and habits about the people he likes-"

"-I don't do that!" I protested.

"Oh yeah?" He challenged, eyebrow raised with a smug look. "Chrissy Carpenter, third grade, what do you remember about her?"

"Easy. Chrissy Carpenter: Big, black, kinky hair that smelled like coconut oil on Mondays, her big brown eyes sparkled whenever you'd offer her your dessert, her face scrunched up the same way as her father when she heard something she didn't like, and-"

He interrupted me going any further down Memory Lane. "-That's exactly what I mean!"

I blinked at him. "What?"

"Most people would only say, 'Oh yeah, I kind of  remember her, she was that one black girl and she was real nice. I think I used to have a crush on her, isn't that funny?' But no, you told me what her hair smells like on Mondays." He emphasized that last part, really digging in the knife that I'm not normal.

Normal. 

What a big fat lie that society has thrown at us. No one is normal, everyone just makes generalizations about the mass majority of the people around them and see if they are the same. And a lot of the times, they are not, and don't do anything about it. And a lot of the times, they change themselves so that they too are the same as the mass majority. But do the latter ever find true happiness? Probably not.

"Whatever..." I uttered, not telling him that he won this argument even if he knew it for himself and read his book again with a sly smile.

I rolled my eyes and went back to reorganizing my CD collection. I liked doing it on a regular basis. It's weird - because one day I'll have it alphabetized by the artists and then the next week it would be sorted out by the kind of rock that I thought it was. This time, I'm reorganizing it by it's release date.

The next CD I picked up was none other than The Mistfit's Walk Among Us  album, and I kind of just admired the cover with a smile on my face. All the cracks and scratches on the case, it brings back memories of when I first met him.

"What do you have that weird face for?" He called from the armchair.

I turned around and held up the CD for him to see. He leaned forward, squinted and then smiled too. He giggled. "I think that album was playing when I first met you. And isn't it a little coincidental that I'm also wearing that t-shirt as well?"

"I think it was... And I like to think you were supposed  to wear that t-shirt today."

His forehead wrinkled and his eyebrows furrowed. "Like fate?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Ugh," he sighed, laying the open book face-down on his chest and swinging his head back. "Please, no talk of fate and shit until 4 in the morning or something."

"Al-right, fine... " I held up my hands in fake defense then turned around to slip the CD into it's rightful spot for at least another week or two.

I giggled. The same way he did.

I heard him shift in his seat again. "What's so funny?" He demanded angrily.

"It's just that-" I laughed a bit more and turned to face him. "I remember you telling me that your-" I broke down laughing again. I felt like I was going to pee, this memory is just too much. "You tellin' me that your real name was: Fuck The Whole Wide World."

As I laughed and wheezed, he blushed and looked around the room for something or someone that wouldn't embarrass him. "I sure did..." he murmured embarrassedly. I remember he told me that was his name when we were freshmen, when I first met him.

I was blasting basically the entire Misfits  discography in my room and bawling my eyes out after school on the first day. It was mostly because of the other kids...

***