The little girl smiled at me, cocking her head to the side, causing her long blonde hair to sway in the breeze. I stepped towards her, and my feet sunk slightly into the fluffy white ground below me. "Who are you" I asked. The girl leapt into the air, and let out a mischievous giggle. "You know me Georgia, we're best friends remember" she replied. I gave her an angry look. "I'm sorry, but I really can't remember you" I repeated crossly. She turned away from me, and started to cry. I felt a pang of guilt. I screwed up my face, trying to remember her. The long blonde hair. The mischievous giggle. The slightly sour smell of burnt lemons. "Alice" I cried out. How could I have forgotten?
Alice had been my best friend from playschool, until she had got struck down with pneumonia at the young age of four, and passed away.
She turned round and started to smile again, drying her bright blue eyes. Then she stopped, and gave me a puzzled look. "Why are you here" she asked. Suddenly, a horrible thought came into my head. Maybe I'm dead, I thought, and this is heaven. If it was heaven, I was majorly disappointed. It was just a load of fluffy nothingness. "Umm... I don't know... is this heaven" I asked. Alice giggled. "No, silly" she scolded me, "this is the corner of your mind where I live". I felt a wave of relief. "So... I'm not dead" I asked. Alice dropped to the floor with laughter, and started rolling around. I smiled.
"You always were soooo funny, Georgia" she giggled, "Remember that time when we poured milk on your mummy's head from the staircase". I nodded, and then looked at her, curiously. "Do you know why I've come here now, I mean, why not some time I was asleep". Alice frowned, pondering my question. "Well, I think it only happens when you are in trouble, or when you need to get a vision" she replied. My heart stuttered. "In fact", she continued, "I've got one here". She drew out a small purple crystal, and placed her hand on it. "Well, put your hand on it as well, what's the point of doing it if you don't see it?" she complained, forcing my hand onto the crystal.
Suddenly, I was back on the field, seeing myself in an unconscious sleep near the bush, now a smouldering pile of ash. Alice jumped. "Eww, so this is why your here, what happened" she asked. I sighed, and told her the whole story, editing out the parts that I thought she was too young to hear. But, I reasoned, she had technically been dead for almost the same amount of years I had been alive, so maybe that counted as aging. "So anyway" I said, "what about this vision". She nodded, and then threw the crystal in the air.
All of a sudden, I was in my old kitchen, the one where my mum had lived. I noticed we were in some kind of floating bubble, controlled by Alice. Just then, my mum stormed in, followed closely by dad, pleading at my mum for something: "Mandy, please, don't do this"- he was cut off by my mum. "I have no choice now, why can't we just enjoy our last few months together". There was a wailing noise from the back room. "Look, just forget about this, okay, for the sake of Georgia" my mum pleaded. Dad hesitated, and then gave in, walking out of the room.
The image started to fade away, and suddenly we were back in that weird white world in my mind. Alice smiled. "That was fun" she said, then started laughing madly. I rolled my eyes, too shaken up to say anything.
After a while, Alice stopped laughing, and cuddled up to me. "Have you seen my mummy" she asked, "I made her this". She held out a little cardboard heart, with I Love My Mummy written all over it. I felt myself well up. "You know" I said, "your mummy's going to visit you soon, and you can give it to her then". I had to stop myself crying, so I pictured my dad and Anna and their new baby all happy together. Alice frowned. "But I can't see her because I'm trapped in here all the time" she said, folding her chubby little arms and pouting at the heart. "Maybe I could set you free" I suggested. Alice jumped up, her face beaming with delight. "All you have to do is think of me in a boat, sailing away from your head" she said cheerfully. I nodded, and did what she said. Ahhh... the power of imagination, I thought wistfully.
Just then a blue boat appeared, and Alice leapt onto it. "Goodbye" I said. Alice turned round, and suddenly she was my age. "Thanks, Georgia" she said, smiling. Then the boat drifted away, and I started to wake...