The Invisible Hero

When Monie was five, I began going to her house for playdates. At that time she could see me as easily as she saw her parents. She would give a silly child’s grin and point to the stuffed animal vending machine. “You try it, Grey.”

She would help me use it, and then a stuffed bear would pop out. “You’re so lucky!” she would tell me. I’d smile, glad to be useful.

Then one day at the park, around a year later, Monie fell from the swings. I caught her before she could hit the ground, and she thanked me profusely. She didn’t seem surprised that it was possible, but the only other girl at the playground, a classmate of hers, Sally, walked over, her face like she’d witnessed the landing of a spaceship. “How did that happen, Monie? You were flying through the air, and then you just stopped and landed softly! That was insane!”

She blinked. “There wasn’t anything amazing about it; Grey caught me and set me down.”

“Your imaginary friend? You still have imaginary friends? Such a sissy!”

“There’s nothing imaginary about him; you saw him catch me, fair and square.”

“I must have seen it wrong.” Sally, who wore designer clothes and prided herself on having no belief in legends– Santa Claus, the tooth fairy or any fairies, unicorns, and above all imaginary friends– stomped away with a snicker. Monie would surely not hear the end of this. She didn’t seem to care. She put her relationship with me above everyone else. I tried to take it objectively, but I couldn’t deny that her attention made me feel special. Isn’t being the special person in someone else’s life what we all want?

A couple years later, when she was eight, she tracked mud through the house and went to change, asking me to clean it before her parents got back. I panicked. Apart from the fluke at the swings, I was completely unable to touch physical things. She disappeared behind the corner. I scrambled to think of a way to clean, to reassure her that I existed. To reassure me that I existed. The seconds ticked by. I knelt and began scrubbing the mud with an invisible rag, but the persistent substance lingered. I held my breath as she bounded back around the corner, in fresh clothes: rumpled pink T-shirt and blue shorts. She surveyed the mess with an analytical eye and embraced me. “I wasn’t gone for very long; thanks for getting it started.”

“Of course,” I replied. She joined me in scrubbing, and the mud eased up.

The next year, her mom had a talk with her before she started school. They sat on the couch in their comfy living room, generally avoiding eye contact. “I know Grey has been a good friend for you, dear,” her mother began. “He’s fun to have around. But your daddy and I think that he might be stopping you from making new friends at school. Don’t you want to have lots of friends and go to sleepovers and share meals with other girls your age? Maybe you shouldn’t mention him to the other kids in your class.”

“But Mommy, I don’t need other friends! Grey keeps me company.”

“You’ll get lonely though sweetie.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I’m not gonna get lonely.”

And that was the end of that. School started, and I went with her. The other kids ignored her, and she ignored them. We would walk back to her house, crunching fall leaves under our feet, and she would ask me if I liked her. I always said of course. Imaginary friends do not like their children conditionally. It is our duty, our reason for existence. So they can be the worst brats in the world, and still we will like them and play with them. You who are humans can judge whether or not this is good childrearing; that is outside of my domain.

Monie continued to see me for a long time. Then, after many years, she was in high school. She would pack me along, but I noticed that she was becoming more discreet about holding the door for me. If a pack of kids was watching her, she would hurry in and let the door slam in my face. She started talking to the other students, and even going out to meals with them. They didn’t know I existed. Sometimes, she would be having a conversation with me, then someone would walk up and she would cease to see me, forgetting I was there. Or she would say she’d been talking with me, but then I would be left hanging. It would be days between the times she wanted me. Then, one day, we had the conversation.

“Sorry I’ve been dismissing you. Life’s become so busy.”

“That’s fine.”

She said nothing for a while, remembering all the things we’d done together. Then she doubted my existence, which made me do the same. I am nothing but a thought in someone’s head. It’s good she’s moved beyond me. She’s getting a real life, not stuck in some weird imaginary world with a person who is not. At the same time, my heart ached. I stifled the feeling down.

“Well,” she said, “I’m going to have dinner with Lisa and her friends tonight. You can stay here if you want.”

“Whatever you want.” We don’t have our own desires– do we?

She didn’t know if I had said that or something else, since she wasn’t even sure if I was standing there. She shrugged and left. She could move beyond me, but I could never do the same. My existence was confined within her.

Many years passed. A whole lifetime, almost. She remembered me as a childhood friend, but she could no longer see me when she tried. Her other friends came and went. They married, moved away, abandoned her, or died. She was now becoming older, and had no one to turn to. I remained beside her. Then suddenly, one day, when she was sick, she saw me. She stared at me for a long time, tears of happiness and memory sliding down her cheeks. We had come to the end of our journey. I could not exist without her.

I go through the experience with her: we hold hands, maybe on earth, maybe in this new dimension. She is a little girl again, the way she always imagines herself when she’s with me. I take her in my arms, and she looks up at me with those trusting five-year-old’s eyes, her arms thrown around my neck as she sits tranquilly on my hip. Briefly, we cannot see each other through the darkness, but we remember the other. Then, we are finally together in a bright new form of existence: one where I am no less real than she is.