An Extraordinary Imagination

Most children let their imaginations run wild, but in the end, imaginary friends and invisible battles between good and evil, disagree as the sun sets. Children can dangle between different realities, changing direction in an instant, easily leaving old ideas in the dust. The world is still a safe place filled with hot dogs, Saturday morning cartoons, and dinner with stern words of eating vegetables.

My world isn't so perfect. My world is a self-created hell.

One this small, dark, unfurnished room is safe for me, the outside world seeps into my consciousness and provide a danger more to others than to myself. Even now, in an instant I could break down the walls around me, and there have been times when they've disintegrated into the sunlight, only to be rebuilt just as fast.

I'm sure the word insanity is crossing your mind right now. I may as well be locked in a mental institution, with incoherent scream pervading the background. If I was truly insane, at least I would have something in common with people outside this room. No one can understand what it means to have a mind like mine, abilities like mine, power like mine.

I won't keep you in suspense anymore, feeding you subtle hints about me, trying to get you to figure out what might keep me in invisible shackles to this chair. I discovered at a relatively young age, that my imagination isn't normal. It may be normal in the sense that I dream about flying, about escaping to some tropical paradise, but there is a distinct difference. My imagination becomes real. A random though from my mind can instantly change the landscape around me. Even now, the walls surrounding me change, visions like dozens of paintings moving, flowing into each other, each a though passing in font of my eyes. As time has gone by, I've start to lose the ability to control these... manifestations. I must focus in something simple, inanimate, in order to keep my thoughts from turning my existence into a living nightmare, ever more than it already is. This, my letter to you, is what keeps order for the moment, seeing each letter form each word, keeps each instant it's own.

I remember when I was 10, just beginning my first year in little league, still innocent and small. My life until that point had been just as any other, almost. I knew I was different, special perhaps, being able to play with anyone, or with anything at anytime, just by focusing. I kept this secret to myself, not wanting to share with anyone else. I still had some friend, from my neighborhood, but when I played with them, it was strictly in the real world.

One day, just as practice was starting, I overheard two of the older guys on our team talking behind the dugout. They were chatting about all sorts of things, school, our team, girls (girls at 12 years old?) what else they would do for the summer. It all seemed pretty harmless, I was even a little happy when they mentioned my name, and same me as a decent ball player. A shy ten-year-old boy loves to hear those sorts of things. I wasn't prepared for what one of them said next. He mentioned something about giving Markus," what he deserved." I couldn't believe what I was hearing, the things that they planned to do to him. Markus was one of the boys who had just started like I had, and was black. He was a sky kid like me, but I had managed to talk to him a few times, since we both played in the outfield, and he was just like me (except for my imagination of course). Over the course of a few weeks, we had become pretty fast friends. I go so angry at those two guys for the things they were going to do to him. My teeth were grinding and my nails were digging into my palms. Pain; I wanted those two to feel pain, just as much as the would have inflicted on Markus. I could feel the rage flow in me like a midnight tide. A scream broke my angered trance. Another scream followed it. I let out a long breath, and slowly walked toward where the screaming had come from. Both boys who had been conspiring against Markus were crumpled on the ground, screaming. They couldn't move, because they're legs were horribly broken. Three bats were on the ground a few feet away, broken in half; splinters of the bats lay round the legs of the boys who had been struck. Through the wailing, the boys were asking how the bats could have flown at them, who could have thrown them.

I knelt on the ground some distance away from them, looking at the indentations left in my palms from my fingernails. I knew that I had caused this to happen. My rage at the prejudice escaping those boys' mouths was enough for me to cause this to happen. I didn't specifically think about the bats, or breaking any of their bones, but many though lay just below the surface of consciousness.

I didn't play baseball after that day. My mother questioned me about it for along time, but I only told her that seeing the boys like that had frightened me so much, that I never wanted play ever again. It was true, actually, just not in the way that my mother thought. I didn't want to hurt anyone else. I couldn't imagine what would have happened if I had wanted to kill them. I don't know where those boys are now, but I hope they are living somewhere safe, away from harm. They deserved something for being so hateful toward Markus, but not having to spend a year in casts, and several years of physical therapy.

I took me a long time to recover from that incident; my parents even took me to a therapist for awhile. He thought that he was helping me get through a normal childhood traumatic experience. I never told him the real reason. I worked through things on my own, and eventually, my parents decided I was "fit and fine," as they always said.

I fought my imagination all through high school, and I managed to avoid an major mishaps, no more broken bones or burned down buildings. I was during that time that I was able to build up a defense, a way to live a relatively normal existence. Imagination is just as every other thought or idea, you must be aware of it to have any permanence. If I focused on the task at hand, homework, cooking, mowing the lawn, I was able to avoid and unwanted "environmental changes." It took some time, a lot of practice, and an incredible amount of patience, but I was able to implement this defense, and my episodes virtually disappeared. Those small instances where my imagination did find it's way to the surface, my newly found control was able to keep anyone and anything from being damaged.

You may be wondering what it was like to have a vision from deep within my mind, suddenly existing in front of my eyes, as tangible as the paper you are holding in your hand. Disorienting is the first thing that comes to mind. A very simple example is wondering what the sky would look like if it was deep red instead of blue. My mother was sitting next to me on the deck when that though came across my mind. She put down her book, shook her head, as though she didn't know what had happened, and went back to her book. Those instants, the first when I saw the sky turn blood red, casting the world in a most gruesome glow, and the second seeing my mother's reaction to it. It wasn't just that I could see it as clear as day, others could. I was changing the world around me.

One aspect of all this that saved me was the amazing speed of a single thought. The time it took for the sky to change from blue, to red, to blue was only enough to make my mother think she had fallen asleep for an instant. You may be curious to how powerful this ability of mine is.

The city workers of the town I live in really have no idea how many times windows have been broken, in this building or that, over the last twenty or so years. One day towards the end of my senior year in college, I was listening to some music on my walkman. It was my "adrenaline" music, deep driven beats with harsh electronic background, enough bass to make a car vibrate if you had the volume up to high. I was walking down the street close to the high school, when a crescendo in the music began, and my body started to rise with the volume. I felt my soul want to scream out, to be in union with the waves of sound penetrating my ears. My eyes closed for an instant, and when they were open, buildings surrounding were covered in broken glass. That silent scream that had been given birth from the CD in my walkman had broken down my defenses, and I spent several second willing the glass windows whole again.

You might be able to see why I will spent the remainder of my years in this closed of space, away from anything that could be altered by me. There isn't any specialized protecting in this apartment, but I have no television, no newspaper, no magazines, no books to give me new thoughts, new hatreds, new loves. An old friend brings feed every week, enough to keep me sustained, but no more. I spend my days writing in my journal, reading books that I've long since explored in my mind and therefore don't affect my visions anymore. I left all my friends and family years ago, fearing for their safety when I was around. I was fortunate growing up that managed to avoid causing any pain to those that I care deeply about.

Well, that's not exactly true. I can play the scene in front of me now, a movie on the plaster wall behind my desk. College opened up many doors for me. It allowed me to explore a totally new universe, a completely new place away from home. I was inundated by new ideas in each class, new friends and... her.

My imagination had been virtually silent for so long that I wasn't prepared for the flood that overcame when I met Janet. The first few hours after our first conversation I spent in the woods, wild transformations happening around me, visions of so many different futures all revolving around on person. It seems that each thought of whimsy that I had suppressed over that past few years had escape Pandora's Box that night and consumed me. It took me the entire next day to regain some semblance of control. Propped up against a tree, I writhed as one vision after another passed in front of me. Love, marriage, death, pain, happiness, anger, sadness, a parade of every human experience in a matter of hours. I walked back to my room, covered in dirt and moss, physically exhausted and shaken. A few curious onlooker outside my building just stared, unsure whether to run away from me, or come to my aid. In the shower I made a choice never to see Janet again, deathly afraid of another experience as I had just had.

I wasn't that lucky. She found me that evening, sitting at my desk, after my roommate had let her in the room. She touched my shoulder and I had to fight hard, my eyes clamped shut, trying to hold off releasing anything that she could actually see. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I tried to maintain control. The delicate softness of her hand on the skin of my neck was like a sharpened knife, slashing away any control that I could muster. I slumped down in the chair, not able to fight anymore against the onslaught.

To this day I don't know exactly what the transformation looked like. I must have been an amazing sight, because when my eyes opened, I saw the grass bending slightly in the wind, poking between Janet's toes, her eyes wide as the sky on the horizon, mouth agape, hands trembling slightly.

I stood and moved next to here, following her gaze to the white-capped mountains in the distance. I touched her arm with my fingers, and she jumped away from me, the look of total shock pasted on her face. She has a question on her lips, but the sound could escape her throat. She didn't need to ask it; I knew exactly what it was.

In as calm and quiet voice as I could manage, I told her everything, my ability, my defense for it, the episode with the baseball bats, what I had gone through the night before. Her face didn't move for a long time, even after I had finished my explanation. She turned toward the sun again, which had begun to set in the distance. This was my "perfect place." A rolling plain, with scattered, tall, oak trees framing small hills. Huge snow covered mountains in the distance, giving birth to a roaring river that flowed swiftly through the hills and over the plain. I always found this place just before sunset, my favorite time of the day. It had been years since I had created this vision, but every detail was the same. Except for Janet. She began to walk slowly towards the river that was at the bottom of the small hill that we had been standing on. I followed here, staying a few steps behind, letting her absorb everything that she saw, and everything that I said.

I watched her kneel at the back of the river, the sand and pebbles surrounding her toes and her knee-caps. She turned to look at me, after long moments of starting at the clear, crystal water. Her eyes were full of questions, doubts, fears, desires. She raised her hand and beckoned me closer. I sat down a few feet from her, not yet willing to touch her again, fearing her to get and run, breaking the moment between us. She moved closer to me and put her head on my shoulder, breathing gently against my chest. I put my arm around her and we stayed that way for many perfect moments, watching my sun fall, and the stars slowly appears.

It was only when my roommate opened the door that the vision broke and the blank white walls of the room came into view again. Even after the mountains were gone, we faced them, unmoving, existing in a universe that only contained our bodies and our spirits.

Many weeks and months passed, with Janet and I exploring so many facets of my mind. She was my companion and my guide, helping me restore parts of me that were lost when I abandoned my imagination. There was a whole new level of control now. She was an outlet for me, prevent unwanted convulsions during random moments of the day. Those were enlightening, frightening, invigorating, sensual, pervading days. Never have two people experienced so many things that reality could never provide. I created entire worlds for us, and we never left the woods that were just beyond my building. No one ever knew about us, because I always had a basic thought, creating a barrier that no one could break, and no one could even see.

I want to tell you that it was the beginning of a perfect, life-long relationship, but the simple fact that you are reading this letter precluded me from saying that. I came to a point in life when I was riddle with stress, my classes difficult, my family in turmoil, and my attitude suffered. My mind could no longer create the wondrous places that Janet and I had long enjoyed. Whenever I tried to do just that, thing became twist by my stress and upset. I focused, and strain, trying to take us to placed beyond the anxiety, beyond our real lives at the moment, but my mind could escape, even if my body did. The visions became, ragged, distorted, even frightening sometimes, and after several of those experiences, Janet stopped asking me to create for her. I tried to convince her that if I really tried I could find my "perfect place" again. Even that didn't work anymore. For a few months she stayed away, hoping that I'd be able to work out my problems and be able to control my visions again. I struggled through those days, shutting of my ability, focusing on work, and having many discussions with my parents. My class work improved greatly, much to the relief to Janet and my parents. My parents even worked out the differences they had been having over the past year, and everything seemed to be back to a happier normal.

Even with this amazing imagination of mine, I couldn't stop others from experience life as normal. I couldn't only affect myself, and the environment around me, never another person. When I answered my phone one day, and in an eerily calm voice, my uncle told me that my parents had died in a car accident, my world, and all the world I could ever create again were shattered. I found myself in the woods again, against that same tree that saw my visions of Janet a year before, screaming against the death that pervaded my mind.

I can't share with you what I saw those few days that I spent out there. You are better off now knowing what the human imagination can create in a sate of mind as I was in. Just know that eventually I managed to crawl back to my room, into my bed, and mercifully sleep. I awoke to hand touching my cheek, and a cold cloth on my forehead. Janet's deep brown eyes slowly came into focus before grief flooded my eyes and blurred the world again. I could feel her lips on my cheek, trying to infuse me with confront, but the pain of losing my parents has found my thoughts against, and the world distorted into a Dalí-like painting, strangely drawn figures in awkward landscapes. In my stupor I managed to see Janet's eyes peer around the distorted landscape. This time, the shock on her face wasn't that of joyful amazement. It was fear, terrible fear. The ground was littered with dead, decomposing bodies, the stench rising in the humid air. I pulled away from me, and stumbled over the body closest to her. When I looked over the side of the bed, and saw the face of the body, I screamed out. In the new universe that we were in, the sound reverberated off the ground and sky, creating a deafening howl, that wouldn't leave my ears, or Janet's. She ran over to me and shook, yelling at me, trying to beak the spell that had come over me and trapped her in this place. I finally closed my mouth, and my head began to jerk back and forth the motions of her arms.

The room returned to normal, thankfully. We were both bathed in sweat. Janet looked as though she wanted to run towards the door. She held onto my shoulders, in decisive for a moment. She let go of me after a long moment, stood up and walked slowly towards the door. She gathered her jacket and purse, and left the room.

I laid there, in emotionally agony, not able to reconcile what I had just seen. I wanted so much to run after Janet, to somehow convince here that it was only one, vision not my whole being. Even if my body could have obey me at that point, I don't thinking she would have listened. The look of pain, anger, and hurt on her face the last time I saw it told me enough. It was that instant I wanted to die. To end this suffering, to finally be rid of this curse that I had been given. Even as the knife I imagined slowly moved towards my heart, so innate defensive mechanism, dissolved the knife into dust on my soaked shirt. I tried a real knife a few moments later, but my mind turned it into a piece of driftwood, and I could not bring myself out of the vision to make it real again.

So here I am, alive, barely, protecting myself and the world against a cursed gift that I never wanted. I'll be haunted by these fanciful visions until life finally leaves my body on it's own. Visions of dragons' flame and marching soldiers, the center of the earth and the depth of space. Visions of the bodies laying on the ground of that Dali-distorted universe, the smell forever on my nose, and the look of Janet, staring into the empty eyes of her own corpse, mangled by my own twisted prescience.

I pray that you are blessed with this gift of mine, nor anyone else on this planet, past, present or future.