The Untimely Death of an Imaginary Friend

By the time I throw myself over the wire fence and lay my head on the train tracks, I’ve been dead for seven years. Dark and quiet, the only sound is the distant roar of traffic on the bridge into town. I can see the stars. The dew seeps into my clothes and I’m shivering. Should have worn a coat. I press my face against the rail, feel the cold, hard steel biting into my cheek, sober up a little. Noah Jackson. My name. I don’t know who I am anymore.

            I guess you’re wondering why I’m here? I know I am.

            Typically, it’s about a woman. Maybe. We met online so she could be anybody. A ghost in the machine. Except I didn’t think she was just anybody, I thought she was The One. My soul mate. So I’ve left my wife and abandoned my unborn child. For what?

            I.

            Hate.

            Me.

            I am my father.

           

I’m sitting at the kitchen table and it’s morning, sunlight streaming through the open window, the drone of a lawnmower and the scent of cut grass on the breeze. Summer, because I’m wearing shorts. I’m four years old. My earliest memory.

            My mother is standing at the sink in her dressing gown. She has her back to me. It must be Saturday because it’s cartoons on the telly, all manic laughter and crazy sound effects. There’s a bowl of cornflakes in front of me. I’ve got the spoon in my hand, but I’m not eating. I have to do the maze on the back of the cereal packet first. In the place opposite me there’s an empty bowl and a spoon. They belong to Jason Christmas.

            The back door opens and my father comes in, smoking one of the scruffy cigarettes he rolls himself. He flicks the butt into the garden before shutting the door. He kicks off his boots, scattering grass cuttings across the floor, then pads over to the table in his socks, leaving large, sweaty footprints on the tiles.

            ‘You can’t sit there, Daddy,’ I say.

            His hand rests on the back of Jason Christmas’ chair, about to pull it out.

            ‘You can’t sit there,’ I say again. ‘Jason Christmas is sitting there.’

            ‘How long,’ my father asks, turning to my mother, ‘do we have to put up with this shit?’

            She doesn’t answer.

            ‘I said,’ he shouts, ‘“How long do we have to put up with this shit?”’

            The air turns to ice, frozen, as if we’ve suddenly noticed we’re standing, precarious, at the edge of a cliff, not knowing how we got there but understanding that if we so much as breathe we’ll tumble over the precipice, our bodies dashed to pieces on the rocks beneath.

            See how we fall.

            Time speeds up but we’re moving slowly, groggy, like sleepwalkers. Going through the motions of a habitual dance, barely conscious of the steps.

            ‘There’s no harm in it, Dave,’ my mother says.

            ‘No harm,’ he says, ‘no harm? I can’t even sit at my own bloody table!’

            ‘Calm down,’ my mother says, ‘what will the neighbours think?’

            ‘Don’t tell me to calm down! This is my house and I’ll do whatever the hell I like!’

            In one fluid motion my father sweeps the empty bowl and the spoon onto the floor, reaches across the counter and slips the largest knife out of the block.

            ‘Jason Christmas is it?’

             He raises the knife and, smiling, rams it into Jason Christmas’ chair, through the plastic cover, the foam and the chipboard so that the point sticks right through to the other side.

            ‘Not anymore!’ he cries as he kicks the seat and wrenches the knife free. The chair falls to the ground. My father falls to his knees and stabs the seat back again and again and again, accompanied by a sudden burst of frenzied laughter coming from the telly.

            ‘What’re you doing?’ my mother says, frantic, still thinking of the neighbours.

            He stops.

            He puts the knife on the draining board and bends down to pull his boots back on.

            ‘Dave? Where are you going?’

            He opens the door and steps outside.

            ‘To bury the body,’ he says.

            He lets the door slam behind him without bothering to look back.

I can hear the train approaching. A low rumble at first, then louder, clackety-clack, clackety-clack, in counterpoint to my heart. Then it’s here and sound becomes my entire world, tearing my soul apart.

            And then it’s over.

            I’m still here. A sign? Maybe.

            Now watch me weep.