Except perhaps that I met the most extraordinary person I would ever meet that day – Imogen.
● ● ●
It was a few days after I ran away and I was walking around town fully equipped with some food sachets and a sleeping bag. I noticed that Imogen had made herself a small place of residence out of cardboard boxes and was baffled at why people weren’t questioning this clearly out-of-place structure. Imogen looked happy enough to have someone in her home and noticed the dark rings around my eyes. When I explained to her about my sleeping disorders she showed genuine interest and told me that she had also suffered from chronic insomnia. Yet Imogen’s face was so wholesome, porcelain skin, free from imperfections. How could someone as stunning as her have such an ugly “disease”? She told me tales of how she had learnt to control her insomnia; the fact that she can go without sleep for extreme periods of time was not always a bad thing. Stress was usually the reason for dark rings and wrinkles; so long as I relaxed my face and closed my eyes then I had nothing to worry about.
Imogen and I would go on adventures pretending that we were away from the world for those short moments of time. I had never asked her about why she left home as our pasts never seemed important when we were together. But our pasts were to become very public in the days that followed.
● ● ●
“Understand what?” I shrieked back. It must have been quite a sight for everyone around us, two young girls hollering at each other, both dripping with blood yet neither with any sustainable injuries.
“You’ve obviously developed an unhealthy obsession with me and my life.”
“God In Heaven, are you really that self absorbed that you believe everyone around you is in love with you,” she remarked.
It hit me hard, I had idolised this girl for the past three weeks but I realised at that moment that I didn’t really know her. Her personality was starting to look unsightly and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue being friends with her.
Then I gazed into her eyes, those eyes, glimmering as the rays of sun reflected off the window into them.
“Why would you do this? I truly thought that we were friends… I can see now I made a big mistake.”
She sighed and closed her eyes.
“Tell me this, why is it that we can’t sleep?”
I gave her a meaningless look as if to say, “Imogen, I ask myself that question everyday yet never find any answers”.
“I know,” she continued, “I have the answers you’ve been looking for. And I’m sorry, I should have told you age ago. But I felt like we had connected, only I can understand what it’s like to be like you, no one else. We share something special.”
“Oh God,” I began, “You’re not going to tell me we’re related and you’re my long lost twin are you?”
She laughed. I remembered how much I liked her smile; she didn’t smile often but when she did it felt as if the heavens really had opened.
“This isn’t our world is it? We had our time but now we need to let go…”
She sounded like she was talking more to herself than anyone else.
“You really are confusing me Imogen. It sounds like you want me to join some twisted suicide pact and if that’s your plan then count me out!”
“Do you really have to make a joke out of everything?”
Why couldn’t anything be simple with Imogen? As I thought angrily to myself I decided that I didn’t want to play any of her stupid games anymore and it was time to go.
“I’m leaving. I’m returning home. I don’t care if my family ignores me or if my old friends don’t talk to me anymore. At least I will be miles away from you. Sometimes, I wish you were dead.”
As soon as I had said those words I wanted to take them back. But I knew it was too late, the damage was already done. Yet even so, Imogen simply shrugged her shoulders and gave me a sympathetic look before walking away in the opposite direction.
After a few miles I looked over my shoulder to find Imogen; she had obviously been following me all this time.
“Look, what do you want?” I sighed.
She was beginning to sound like a broken record, as if she physically couldn’t say what she wanted to say. I knew that it was time to hear what she was blatantly dying to tell me.
“To tell you… the truth about me,” she muttered under her breath.
“About your past?” I questioned, was I about to find out the secrets and lies of Imogen’s times of yore.
“About yours.”
I raised my eyebrow. Was this yet another pointless mind-game?
“I think I know more about your past than you may think… in fact I know a lot more than you do yourself.”
Is that even possible? I wondered to myself. Maybe she was a psychic using me as a case study to experiment her new tricks on. Or more likely, she was having a nervous breakdown. After almost four months of no sleep there were bound to be side effects.
“I really don’t know how to tell you this… you won’t believe me… no one ever does…” She looked around as if looking for something to help her explain whatever it was that she was trying to tell me.
“Is this about my sleep problem?” It seemed the only thing about my past that I knew little about and seeing as Imogen had shown such and interest in the subject from the moment I first told her, it made sense.
“Yes. Well… the night before you developed “insomnia” do you remember what happened?” Said Imogen.
“Only that I woke up outside with my rucksack and sleeping bag. And my head hurt, I’d a dream that I was flying through the sky, then hit the ground only to wake up by someone shaking me violently.”
“Oh honey… it wasn’t a dream.”
“I can fly?” I pondered this thought; flying was something that happened in childish movies.
“No don’t be silly. What I mean is, when you hit the ground you weren’t dreaming. You were sleepwalking during the night and someone had stupidly left the door to the balcony open. You climbed over and jumped… I’m so sorry but… you can’t sleep because… dead people don’t sleep.”
My eyes were so wide they were almost bulging out of their sockets. How could I be dead when all my senses felt so alive? Plus, if I was dead then how is it that other people could see me…
“But you’re talking to me now? I thought that dead people couldn’t be seen by the living”
“Why do you think I knew so much about your condition, your experiences, how others were treating you? I’m… I’m dead too…”
She paused and waited for my reaction. All I wanted to do was to run or scream, find my parents and hug them, tell them I loved them. But as I looked at her I knew that it was out of my hands, I had my chance on Earth and now I had to move on. I took her arm and we walked down the lane, not knowing where it would lead us, towards the mist.
