I’m beginning to think that my childhood imaginary friend isn’t so imaginary.
When I was 4, I had an um, “serious shortage of friends”. Well, that was until Mr. Kringles came when I was in bed, trying to fall asleep. To describe him best, he looks like a person but Is very skinny. you can see his ribs. And he’s white as paper. he has a very defined head. It looks sort of like a skull, but he has a very big mouth. He said he got his mouth a size too big. he’s funny like that. He has sunken eyes that I can now compare to an anime character; lots of glittery sparkles in them.
He has a very high voice that sounds like he filled his mouth with helium 24/7. He and I have a lot of memories together. pranking my older sister Rachel, trying to sing (he was better at it than I was) and me and him swinging at the park.
But all things come to an end, and eventually, I got to High School and my geeky personage met other geeky people. Day by day, visits from Mr. Kringles became less and less frequent. It seemed like the more I forgot about him the less I saw him. I started hanging out with my real friends and didn’t have to make up one that was imaginary.
Imaginary.
That was what I thought he was until it happened.
I had graduated high school and was a sophomore in college when I saw him again. My mom had just passed away of pneumonia. In her will, it said that she would be passing down all of her family photos and scrapbooks down to me. Eventually, they showed up at my post office, and I brought them to my dorm.
After the week was over, I started to look through them. It was like reliving my whole childhood. On my seven-year-old birthday where the cake caught on fire, On Our skiing trip where Rachel fell and got a bloody nose somehow and spent the rest of her time sitting in the lobby drinking hot coco. I was getting teary-eyed by my seventh Christmas. I had never realized how much my mom had worked to record my childhood like some documentary.
Then I saw the picture that changed it all. my 11th birthday party. Everyone was sitting around the table, a huge white cake sitting on a platter. I was smiling. My sister was rolling her eyes, but I saw the smile she tried to hide. My dad was in the back with a trash bag for the pieces of wrapping paper we were going to tear off and throw to the side.
But there, in the darkened doorway behind my sister, was Mr. Kringles. His eyes gleamed in the darkness of the hallway, illuminating some of his snow-white, skinny body. I dropped the book right there and blinked a few times before looking at the picture again, hoping that somehow, my childhood friend would not be leering back at me the next time I looked.
But there was no mistaking it. That was him. I took a few shaky breaths. That can’t be possible. He was all in my head. Right? he was just a thought. nothing more than that.
But the picture said otherwise. I was still staring at those eyes so big and bright when I heard breathing in my ear.