Paper Prisons

Chapter 1: "Seeing Double"

I live in two worlds. These worlds are equal in almost every way; I have family, friends, and enemies in both. I think, love, and hurt in the same ways, and share identical passions, desires, and characteristics.

But what my two worlds don’t share is reality. Only one has the misfortune of that particular trait. And to my dismay, it’s not the favourable one.

Nonetheless, I try and merge the two, attempt to force the other into being. Of course, the enchanting world remains only in my head, intangible to others. My heart breaks a little more each day it remains that way; it’s a prison living in world that exists solely in one’s mind. But in my multiple experiments to bring it to existence, I used building blocks that no one can question the solidity of: words. For if it exists in writing, then surely it must be real, right?

I sound crazy, but really, I’m not that insensible--just a dreamer. I’ve dreamt of things most wouldn’t believe. Things so real and complex; entire people, with personalities and faces and flaws; beautiful houses fully finished and furnished; towns with neighbourhoods and restaurants and shops. And I know every inch of them. Every road I’ve never driven. Every contour of faces my eyes have never seen and all the quirks of people I’ve never met.

Maybe I should have stopped going to that wonderful world the moment I discovered it. It’s too late now; I’ve fallen in love with that place. With those people. With him.

I would give anything just to hear his laugh, just to see his smile in the dismal world of reality.

But he’s just a figment of my imagination, so I guess it’s just my mind and me.