Many kids have so called imaginary friends. Super friends that can do anything from flying, shooting and saving the world to listen to their owner’s daily problems. At some point, the kids eventually grow up and forget about their ‘imaginary friends.’ They grow up; find real friends, go to school, college, whatever and starts laughing when their parents tell them about their old not-existing friend. This was not my case. Jonathan was real.
Wind was blowing through my family’s backyard and playing softly with my hair, caressing my whole body and making my swing move. I helped the swing out by moving my feet forward and backwards in measure, until there was speed enough for me to consider it fun. My afternoons usually were spent in the backyard where no one could see or find me. Of course, my mother knew where I was but hey, mothers always know where their kids are. That’s what makes them mothers in the first place.
‘Hey, you!’ I looked up to see Jonathan standing there in his ragged clothes. He had a pretty weird fashion taste. Actually his clothes looked like they were picked right off some poor kid a few hundred years ago during the American Revolution. But well, who was I to complain? My clothes weren’t exactly from Lois Vuitton either. A pair of out-worn sneakers, a grey t-shirt with square patterns, and a pair of ripped jeans. The jeans hadn’t been bought ripped, though. I just liked wearing them and just like the sneakers they’d gotten out-worn and ugly.
Jonathan crossed the garden with long steps and came up to me. ‘Whatcha’ doing?’ he asked and made a gesture that told me to move off the swing so he could sit. I did without hesitating. If Jonathan wanted to sit, he would get to sit. Even if that meant I was stuck in the foggy grass, wrecking my already bad pair of jeans with grass stain.
‘I’m just thinking,’ I said and ran a hand through my hair. Just like Jonathan, my hair was brown as constipated poop. Dark with other words. I hated the colour, but guys weren’t allowed to colour hair. Guy-code sucked sometimes.
‘You think too much,’ Jonathan said after a moment of silence and started swinging.
‘Yeah, no one has ever thought me how to think just enough,’ I shrugged and let myself fall back in the grass. Spiders were creeping around and I wrote a mental note that said ‘MOW THE LAWN!’ No one else was going to do it. Mum was almost always at work and dad… I didn’t know where he had gone. Probably somewhere nice, Hawaii maybe? With one of his many lovers or girlfriends. The last part I usually ignored, but today was definitely my thinking-day and everything was going to be thought about. Both bad and good stuff.
‘I’ll teach you,’ Jonathan said and winked at me. ‘Scream out loud.’ Had he just told me to scream? Well that was only going to aggravate my situation. Letting all the neighbours know how messed up I was, was not at my top ten list of things to do before death. Jonathan seemed to read my puzzled face expression. ‘It’ll take away the stress. Or of course, you could go punch that kid over there,’ Jonathan pointed at a little girl who was sitting on a park bench on the other side of the street.
‘How come you always want me to do bad stuff?’ I asked and closed my eyes to calm down. No matter how wrong I knew it was to do those things he told me, it was tempting. When Jonathan said I should go punch a little girl, a huge part of me got fired up and ready to go punch her. Right in the jaw, just to watch her bleed. But like most other people, I had a conscience. Beating up a little girl wouldn’t make me happy in the long run. Her dad would come beat me up, just like my dad had beaten me. Throwing punches until I was lying on the floor with some kind of concussion.
‘Do it. At first you scream, then you go punch the little girl,’ Jonathan’s voice was light and seducing. My fists clenched and my whole body started trembling. Shivering like it was in the middle of the winter and I was lying in the snow naked.
