Did you know that my favorite part of a book are the images the pop into your head as you read? I love them, being able to see the flowers blooming in front of the story tale cottages and the elegant evening gowns swishing in the wind. Even if its not me wearing them its nice to imagine that I am. I love books, books love me. Its like they whisper to me. Stick Cinderella under my pillow at night and my dreams will be filled with pumpkin carriages and glass slippers. I know its not normal. I know that no one else, at least no one I know of, can do that also. And so thats why know one else knows. Not my family, not my friends, no one. And no one ever will, why would I tell them when they would just lock me up in some loony bin for the rest of time? Or drag me into some government facility for testing? I love books but I avoid libraries. My mom doesn't understand why, she wouldn't, of course. All of the voices rallying for attention in my brain, its way to much to handle. I'll stick to one book at a time, thank you. Even my textbooks do it, if I'm holding a history textbook then you can count on visions and sounds of Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther King Jr. implanted in my brain. A math text book will send visions of numbers swirling into my mind. Its a wonder that I didn't actually go crazy, I thought there was no way my predicament could get any worse. But, like most things in my life, it did.
I was sitting in my room, rereading one of my favorite books, The Outsiders, for about the millionth time. As Johnny worked his way around my mind I was startled by a noise from my closet. I looked up, furrowing my brow. What could that be? Convinced that I had imagined it I returned to my reading, allowing the voices of the boys to consume me once more. I hadn't been reading for thirty seconds when, there it was again! That noise from my closet! Failing at convincing myself that I had imagined it, again, I got up, throwing my book down on the chair behind me and stalked cautiously over to my closet. Knowing my little sisters this was probably some silly little prank, where one of them was hiding in the closet, waiting for me to open the door so that they could jump out and 'scare' me.
I reached my hand out towards the door knob, and then I stopped cold. It was already turning. So it wasn't my sisters. But if it wasn't them then what was it? I had barely finished my thought before...Ponyboy stepped out of the closet and turned to look at me.
"Would you mind telling me where I am?"
OH. MY. GOSH.
I stood there actually looking at Ponyboy! The person from my book! Seeing them in your mind is one thing, but seeing them in person is something totally different. I slammed the door shut, not wanting Darry or Sodapop to come waltzing through also. I kept standing there for a second, mentally freaking out. What was I going to do with him? I couldn't exactly bounce downstairs and go, "Hey mom! Had a great day at school! Oh and by the way, Ponyboy just walked out of my closet!" I crumpled onto my bed putting my head in my hands.
"Whats wrong?" He asked. Whats wrong? Whats wrong is the fact that the secret I've been hiding from the world for the past fifteen years just got a lot harder to hide.
"Nothing, nothing at all. A fictional character just appeared in my closet but every things fine. Its just an average day." I huffed, blowing my fringe upwards, away from my face. I stalked around my room, thinking furiously. I thought I might blow up from all of this stress. First books can speak to me, and now characters from books can appear in front of me. And you thought your life was hard. I was so consumed in my own thoughts that I didn't hear the rustling of pages until it was right behind me. I whipped around, and was faced by a tornado of paper that, five seconds ago, had been my book. I screamed. Who wouldn't? The wind kept blowing for about thirty seconds more as the tornado advanced on me. When it was over, all the paper dropped to the ground, fluttering and flipping in the air. I sat down beside the pile, morning my book. I even managed to forget about a certain book character that had been sitting on my bed. But he was gone. The only thing left was the indentation in the bed where he had sat.
Was I just crazy? No. No, I wasn't. I had figured out many years ago that I wasn't. But that didn't mean that I didn't have a very overactive imagination. Knowing that this was going to make life harder I set about cleaning up the remains of my lost book. Birds twittered away outside, not a care in the world. Yeah, right. As if thats possible. The sunlight pouring through the windows burned my back as I scooped up pieces of paper and shoved them into the trash can. Ouch! What was that? I carefully picked up the thing that I had cut my hand on. It was a piece of a pop bottle. Ponyboy's pop bottle. So I hadn't imagined it. I never thought that I would be able to say it but, this just got weirder.
"Everything okay honey?" My mothers voice floated up the stairs.
"Fine mom! Every thing's fine." I tried not to sound to mad, it wasn't her fault that her daughter was such a world class freak. Okay, so maybe it was her fault, but only a little. Genetics and all that. But its not like she could control it. Whats the point in getting mad when nothing will change it? I can hear the books, I can see the books, now I can meet the characters, and nothing can change it now.
