“You are not real right?” I asked. Leaning on the wall of the bar. Not as cold and cosy as I was before. There was a sense of being transcendent to where I was. Lifted out of the confines of the universe, just a tinge. A tinge was plenty. Lucidity inducing.
A smile forged from the corner of his mouth, the kind that conceals a lot more than it conveys. The kind capable of misinforming and misdirecting.
"I told her you are not real," I said, hoping to elicit a response of any usefulness. For a person who always kept his emotions at the surface like leaves floating on the water, he was surprisingly and inconceivability calm. The person gazing at me now was of another transcendent nature, if men have seen demons taking over people's bodies and minds that are what it would look like. It looks as though the person you have come to know is completely gone, another personality has taken over peering through the eyes. It dwelt in the little facial features, gestures and postures. Even the presence he emitted was foul and eerie, almost cold. He stood there unshaken like a portrait, spreading mystery and unrest to his surroundings. He screamed ‘See me and be mystified to ultimate concern’.
I should be scared, I thought.
He answered, “Real as a character in a book, real as the meaning of the words. Real.”
My cheeks twitched. “So it does not matter you’re not a sack of meat like me or in any way material. What matter’s to you is that you make things matter?”
He elegantly shook his head. “Which is more prominent, Sandy, me as the product of your imagination or you as a product of my actuality?”
“What are you insinuating?” my heart suddenly pounded. Ramming the breath out of my lungs, and making breathing wheezy hustle.
“What are you insinuating?” He returned. “Aren’t you revealing something to yourself here?” He smiled, obviously amused in a fatherly way. As if he trusted me to understand, or knew that I did understand. I needed him to say something, something that would make what was to come acceptable.
“I don’t know,” I paused, “is it okay to call you an imaginary friend? Are you even just imaginary in the ordinary sense? You and Macxermillio?”
“Are you actual in the ordinary sense, Sandz?”
“Does not feel like it,” I shrugged.
He nodded. “Well, there you go. We are both struggling to accept what we are fundamentally. You are just a material, an it, trying to pass by as person. And I am an idea trying to pass on as a person. Now we see. Now we understand what she wanted us to understand.”
“So that we would accept it?”
He giggled. “I guess so. She wanted us to see it for ourselves. To see give in to the mystery. The details weren’t important.”
“How sure are we of this. How sure are we of what we think we know now?”
He shook his head, wide and slow. “Not that sure, Sandz. Does not feel right or wrong. Giving in to the mystery has been the theme of the night, and perhaps the theme of all the hustle we have had with the calling all of our lives. Maybe the point is we are not really supposed to know anything else than the fact that our pains and woes shall disappear.”
He held out his hand so I may hold it as if he wanted to lead me somewhere. For a while, I did not understand the significance of the gesture or what it meant. Picking up on the clueless-ness, then he told me, "There is a construction truck coming from up campus. I think we should get closer."
I gave him my left hand, and we walked to the edge of the road. Peacefully, we, my remaining imaginary friend and I, waited in the rain as the bright headlights approached from up campus.
THE END
Dear Reader
Thanks for taking the time to read my book. I hope you enjoyed it. I love hearing from all of you and I take the time to read the emails and reply. Email me at macxermillio@gmail.com . If you enjoyed this work please leave a review and rate it. Why? Because reviews help others find my work and that helps me continue writing. And also, I love knowing that someone has enjoyed my work as well.
Don’t forget to check out the Reading Club Guide for Before the Cult and the Before The Cult Essays, these were written with the aim to help you appreciate this work better and discover more. I would say one has never truly read the book if they didn’t engage with that material. All this material is included in the back.
Thank you
Sandy Masia