You Are a Joke

A quaint time that was, and not solely because we call it both day and night. My years had just waltzed into its fifteenth, and if we assume the language of those who purposely stay up, it was three in the morning. 

Now, there was this law of nature—though I find him unnatural—that all who were born on the first of April were claimed by this unknown entity. Like a godparent, this embodiment of pranks itself made it his utmost duty to visit each of “his” fifteen-year-olds during the ill-defined six hours when no one could objectively blame him for being early or late.

These were all derived from patterns and inferences from testimonies, quasi-qualifying as a law of nature. Clever and consistent the trickster seemed to be. And while this utterly frightened some or excited others, I myself had saved up and planned all my reactions and wits. I was to be his equal. 

At a fairly new boarding school, alone in my room on the highest floor, eating cake, and estranged I all was from new friends who I supposed dared not entertain The Entertainer. Just after I finished devouring one-fourth of the candleless cake, my eyes grew heavy and sleepy, closing for a minute. But as sure as my aging, he popped up behind me—

So I threw the cake at his face.

It slid off quickly and went splat on his feet, and I decided he was a short figure indeed. He did not float or resemble some troll, as certain teenagers around the world described, or possibly exaggerated.

Aside from a caked face and caked feet, the Frolicker of Fifteen was the average man-child. I laughed, and he grimaced—a sly gap in the circular cakey mess. “Say, no one has ever done that to me!”

He broke into a chuckle, but no facial feature but a crescent mouth seemed to protrude from his flat face. Odd. He guffawed, chortled, giggled, but never repeated a type of laughter. When he began a set of more. . . guttural sounds, I had to interrupt with all that I had imagined to say. 

“I have to ask,” I said, “is your face so ugly you would leave it that way? Scrub the cake off, that I may laugh at what’s behind it.”

The anticipated intruder stood in puzzled silence. “What face?”

We both now faced each other in confusion. He followed up with, “Why, did you think I was human? Silly creatures!”

I frowned. “Alright, let’s do some Fooling, shall we?”

He clasped his small hands together. “Well, you are certainly prepared, but since it appears one of us has made up his mind to switch roles, then I hope you’re prepared for my imminent and instant vanishing.”

“No, wait!” I said. “Please, go on with your. . . festivities.”

After a snort or two, he cleared his voice. “Alas, half an hour ago I smeared grease on the mouths of your sleeping friends, but I’m pretty sure they’re only acquaintances. You came to this school just five days ago.”

“I call your bluff,” I said. “About the first part.”

The Purple Prankster—as someone on the news labeled him—bent down, scooped up the cake, and threw it at my bed. “That backfired on you, silly!” 

Free to move, he then paced around the room, a cakey finger pressed onto his cakey mouth, and continued, “Ah, but it’s true, both the first and second part.”

I tried to conjure up something brilliant to say. “Sure, though I must say, if all I have are acquaintances, then a prank done to them should not matter enough to act as a prank done to me.”

He grumbled and muttered things, finally stopping in front of me. “Okay, if you’re so smart, then answer me, why don’t I have a face?”

Things got awkward quickly, as Cakey—an appropriate name I made up—leaned closer and closer, as if he desired to merge our faces through cake. I then pushed my chair back a little to reach out with a thumb. “Here, let me wipe—”

He sprang backwards. “Woah, don’t get all romantic!” 

I blinked blankly, further noticing that in small patches were skin showed, it was most definitely not purple. I swung around to grab my phone. “You’re not as fun as others of ‘my kind’ have reported. You have a single lame prank, and you don’t float in the air. At least you look interesting.”

I said that as my camera clicked and snapped a photo of him bouncing on my bed with frostings for feet. But upon reviewing the picture, no one was there. 

In the real world he definitely was, each jump causing a springy sound. “You know,” he said between exhilarated gasps, “if I explained the metaphysics of my existence, you’d be boggled.”

“No, I don’t think you’re that complicated. But your boringness tonight—”

“Or today,” he chimed in.

“Tonight or today, you are unusually boring with stupid pranks and failing to fool me.”

“Ouch,” mocked Cakey, “but do realize that I’m boring because you are too. Besides, when at first contact I got caked right away, you ruined my mojo!”

“Yeah, yeah, just give me something worthy of April Fool’s Day,” I demanded, “and my birthday.” 

“Fine,” he ahem-ed and vocalized a few notes. “Happy April Fool’s Birthday, you aging troll!”

I peered at him with a deadpan expression. “You’re officially the first to greet me. . . thanks.”

He smoothly tumbled off the bed and returned to roaming around with a puffed-up chest. “Special people like you, whom I’ve claimed, they’re lucky to have me, eh?”

“Tell me, why are you here? Why are you doing this?” I asked. “I think your answer would be most amusing indeed.”

Cakey hopped back on the bed, sitting with dangling legs beside the mushed cake. “Because, there’s a certain someone who dearly needs a friend. Wants a reason to smile, and things to laugh at.”

I lowered my gaze, fiddling with my fingers. “Oh, I don’t think I’m that lone—”

“Not you, self-centered brick!” he snickered. “That someone is me.”

I growled, losing all professional cool. Why did I hope or prepare for a trickster who can prank at a deeper level, converse cleverly, or treat the birthday kid with tricks? “You’re lonely? Let’s leave it that way. Get out and intrude another room.”

Then he started to disappear. Bit by bit, particle by particle, Cakey began to drift off. . . and stream. . . towards my head. I gasped and scrambled away, but nothing could cut the flow aimed at my forehead. 

“What’s happening?” I screamed. 

“It’s all a joke,” Cakey said, now lacking a leg. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? And there were so many clues that I—well, you—unintentionally placed for yourself, not because it’s the exception, but the rule.”

I stared up at the dust entering my brain. “You’re all in my head?”

“Yeah, I am. I popped behind you when you began to sleep, so you saw no forming of particles. And hey, even this stream of dust is imaginary!”

“Are you then my split personality?” I took a deep breath, but my whole body felt constricted.

“I am your imaginary friend.” Cakey grinned. “Even teenagers like you need friends, and right now I’m all you have.”

“But how can every fifteen-year-old born on April Fool’s have the same experience. Are we all that lonely?”

“Ah, but I’m not purple, am I? I’m not the great Entertainer or tricked you in any way. You didn’t have time to decide what I should look like, because the cake went first. In reality, you threw the cake at your bed directly, and since it’s not a long slide down to the floor, there formed my feet. That became my short height.”

I gripped my head and shook it, but when I dared to look, Cakey was still there, though merely his round face persevering. “Please stay,” I said.

“I’ve done my job. Believe it or not, there’s a force beyond your imaginary friends that makes ‘your kind’ experience this on the same age, same six hours, same day, but it lets your mind run with it. I guess you could call it a cosmic prank, or a law of nature.”

Cakey, all that was left of him, began to vanish first around the edges, the circle shrinking. A crescent smile. Then nothing.

I sat breathless, staring at the cake which was messily split half on the bed, half on the floor. I massaged my forehead, feeling as if I now shared it with a certain someone, though Cakey was just me. . . but with cake.

It saddened me to know that no one else saw Cakey, and that none of my acquaintances would care to hear or ask about him, whether they tasted grease in the morning or not. 

A final voice echoed throughout my head. “April Fool’s! You fooled yourself. Ah, it never gets old.”

I sure fooled myself. With a sigh I turned the lights off and crawled into bed, first kicking the cake chunks off the edge. I closed my eyes.

Ah, it never gets old.

My eyes flickered open, staring right through the window and into the vast city. There were others like me who had just fooled themselves, or a year ago, or will in the next. If that many birth-twins had imaginary friends like me, maybe we could find each other over news reports. 

There were those my age, my kind that I had to meet. . . to prank. And perhaps we can more unite over what we need than what we have.