Fantasies

Have you ever had the idea that we might just be in a coma and what we know is just our imaginations trying to keep us from going brain dead? Or maybe you've thought that all the stars are like holes in a cup, and we are just small creatures roaming a fake land? Maybe it was that this world is the real hell and real life is better than this? Nobody can really say anything is real for sure, can they?

Harper loves to get lost in books, spiraling down into her own imagination. Fictional, Realistic Fiction, Love stories, Novels, nursery rhymes, anything to avoid the reality; that her life is horrible. Sometimes she'll imagine that her parents only put her into the system because they were special agents, and needed to have extra eyes and ears on certain people. People whisper and give worried looks towards the little girl talking to herself in a corner, but she thinks that this one, very special corner, is where her parents will hear her giving information. Gossip, lies, rumors, anything she can get a hold of. Once she thought that her caretaker was the evil queen and she was snow white. Why else would she be in a fancy place that looked like a medieval castle modernized? One of Harper's favorite books was the story of a young girl, who had to grow up to find that her family were fairy tail characters but none of them knew it. The young girl was named Emma and was 28 in the story, but she grew up in foster care in Bridgton. Emma moved to a place called Story Brooke, Maine after her son came to Emma's front door. This story was called Once Upon a Time, and Harper believed she was a different version of Emma.

Many caretakers sent Harper to different therapists, only to have every single one of them say that,

"Reading is good for a girl her age, " or "These are just her coping methods, they're fairly healthy ones for her age." Nobody really understood what was going on. Even so, there was always a cycle of caretaker after caretaker, none of them sticking around long enough for Harper to open up and tell them about her imagination, or for her to be corrected in her overactive thought processes.

This was when she was 9 years of age, today she is 17 and still is lost in the world of books. Reality hasn't quite hit her yet; that her parents are never coming back, that they might be dead, or that they might have not wanted a kid. Instead she clung onto the idea that her parents were fairy tail characters and they just couldn't remember her or who they were. Harper is the type of girl who always has a book in her face, the one who has read all the books in the library, the type who has 5 library cards; the bookworm. You'd probably think she'd be in all the book clubs imaginable; but she tends to keep a safe distance from those. Harper is not special, but not normal either. She doesn't want to make a big appearance, or come to an event fashionably late (Like she'd even be at an event anyways), but can't be invisible no matter how hard she tries.

One especially memorable moment in Harper's life would be when Cara, her caretaker, walked into the door of the medieval castle looking orphanage for the first time. Harper thought Cara was a real life princess, or maybe a fairy. Cara spotted Harper immediately walking straight up to her and leaned down to where Harper was sitting; just to say,

"You're special, aren't you?" Harper looked up at her with big eyes, longing to be with this woman forever. The one who would understand her stories, help her through life.

"Uh-huh.." was the only thing the 11 year old, holding a fairy tail novel, with long dark red hair, could say.

When Cara brought Harper to her house, which looked like a real castle, Cara gave Harper a gift. The best gift ever, in the whole life of time and space, a private library. It was the size of a ball room! Large, sparkly, breath-taking, and magical. No, Mystical! There was no word to fit the beauty of this room! Pots with flowers, ladders leading to the highest shelfs, and her own personal loft at the far, most gorgeous corner of the room! The windows were huge, with a large velvet curtain to keep the room's mysteries a secret. Harper spent so much time in the library that she didn't notice that the one person who cared about her happiness was gaining weaker everyday. How was she supposed to know when she was wrapped up in her fantasists... The day Cara called Harper into her room, was the day Harper fell into a story; and never came out. Cara would say in a frail voice,

"Child, never let your stories go. Live them till they come true. As far as my dying breath will let me, you'll keep that library you love so much." The tear streaked face of a 13 year old young woman was the only confirmation Cara needed. She knew that Harper would keep her stories forever, even long after all would be taken; including herself.

The next month was hard for Harper. That was the time when she transferred from reality to fantasy. Knowing a day would come when she would have no more books to read, no more stories to live, no more dreams to accomplish, and no more running away from the reality chasing her cloud of speculations away. She'd be completely alone. With no Patch or Nora to save her visions. With no paper and cover. And without the love of the most spectacular person of all ever met before, Cara. A day of glum sadness came soon after the small exchange of words in Cara's chamber. All Harper could do was stare in distraught. What she loved seemed to be ripped violently from her grasp, never to be able to grab hold again.

From then on, nothing had any importance to Harper. The days pass quickly, with her books to be her only friends. One again, she became the girl talking to herself in a corner. Although this time, people held their children closer when they walked by`. People started to hate the creepy doll girl. Some took the discrimination to another level, making sure Harper knew that she was like a ghost story. Eventually, Harper disappeared into her treasured library. Hating what her books had turned her into...But was that the real story? Maybe she'd just felt like she couldn't be accepted into the real world. Keeping her thoughts and imagination locked away because how her old caretakers treated her. Nobody wants to hear the fantasies of an adult, especially when it makes them question reality. Harper knew that somewhere, somehow, there was other life; more mystical then any books could ever express. More magical, like a real fantasy. Who knows what is waiting for us in the afterlife, or even in the center of our earth. Harpers only wishes were to be accepted into one of those communities. Maybe elves could take her into their grasp, what if we were elves, just different. Nobody knows what could be out there. Although, Harper has an idea. Anything you can imagine and more is out there somewhere. It has to be! Doesn't it?

Who knows if Harper knows all the secrets of the imagination. Can't deny what you can't confirm. Can you?