Judging Imagination: Ch. 5

Chapter 5: Where I come from.  Or, how Nona Bernice Hartland managed to find out about "me" and why the heck my tail went missing.

I think I may have gasped again but I maintain to this day that I don't recall.  I do know that I think my heart stopped beating for a moment.  "But, that's impossible!  No one has been taken to the Other Place for almost a century!  Or at least 50 years or so! Or a while at least.  I don't really know but I DO know that grannie-ma SAID that people had stopped dissapearing a while ago...." I stopped when I saw that Nona was nodding her head along with me.

"Yea, yup.  That's right.  Only for us here it has been probably closer to a full hundred years that no one has had an imaginary friend.  I had to dig really deep online in order to find out the good information about you and your world.  See, for some reason all of a sudden it was like people just stopped being imaginative.  About 100 years ago kids ran around with all sorts of imaginary friends with fantastical powers and shapes and sizes and talents.  Only the kid who has the imaginary friend is able to see them of course, just like how I'm the only one who can hear and see you..."

I looked around and realized that Nona was likely telling the truth on that one.  Even when I had been screaching about my missing limbs (about which I was still worrying by the way) no one had looked at me.  In fact, people were only seeming to see Nona.  Who must have looked very strange, now that I think about it, talking to the empty air about her parents and imaginary friend history.

"So," I started, hesitantly, "if before imaginary friends used to be all of these fantastic creatures and people *cough*likeme*cough* then why don't I still have my fantastical creature parts anymore?"

Nona Bernice frowned a bit and put her hand to her chin.  She rubbed at a non-existant spot for a bit; which I guess was her version of nervous ear rubbing or tail fiddling.  Suddenly she brightened and grabbed my hand, pulling me towards a nook of couches and what looked to be eerily silent and quite shiny portablely contained plants.  Sitting us on the rough orange texture of these hard sofas she started to speak to me in earnest. "Okay," she started, almost in a conspiratorial whisper, trying to keep her voice down and perhaps maintain a somewhat less openly crazed appearance to those around her who couldn't see or hear me. "Here's what I think has happened.  Maybe, whaterver caused people to stop getting imaginary friends is the same thing that made you come back here funny!"

She looked so proud of herself with that one declaration but it did nothing to assuage my own worry or to answer any questions in a useful manner for ME.  So I rolled my eyes. "Okay, fine.  But WHAT caused that?  I could make up theories too just as easy.  Maybe it is the random guy with the newly arriving cheese who did it, eh?  You said that was a random thing, right?"

Nona Bernice waved her hand impatiently and stopped when she noticed a group of business suiters had begun staring in our direction.  She turned a quick smile their way and turned back towards the potted plant in the corner, and incidentally me.

"No, no no!" she growled out "I mean I've done a lot of reading and whatever happened to make people unable or unwilling or just unneedy of imaginary friends must have happened 100 years ago.  And now it is OUR job to figure out what that was and to fix it!  That must be why I was able to pull someone through, you see?  Maybe because finally someone had come along who had read enough to know just what was needed to fix what went wrong!  Although.." here she looked me over a bit, her eyes lingering longest on the top of my head where my ears should be and at the lower part of my stomach, as though she were looking through my body to where my tail should be behind me. "Yes.  Maybe you were right the first time when you said maybe I'm an apprentice or something and that's why you came through looking like a normal human instead of whatever you are..."

I had to break in, finally impatient with this girl's lengthy and useless explanations. "I happen to be a half-human half-elemental girl named ASHLEY, thank you very much.  I have a NAME you know Nonie."

"Don't call me that." Nona barked in a strangely sharp voice.

"What?" I asked, taken aback by the viciousness in her voice.

"Nonie.  That's not MY name.  I am Nona Bernice Hartland.  Nona Bernice if you MUST shorten it."

I started at this girl, sitting forward next to me in the lobby of some adult arena, earnestly trying to convince me that not only was I somehow her imaginary friend but that she, and only she, was somehow able to create an imaginary friend or to pull us out of our world. Her hair was hanging forward into her eyes and her dark purple shirt was gaping open around her neck, looking a bit frayed as if she was habitiually bitting at the fabric.  Perhaps she nibbled on her clothing while she read all those books she kept harping on about. Somehow this frazzled looking thing was trying to get me to believe that she had no idea why I had no tail and why all of a sudden I was here talking to her even though, by all means either she or I knew; it hadn't been possible.  And she was telling me to give her 3 full names.  Unbelieveable.

I shook MY head this time. "No.  You brought me here; I call you what I want.  So. NONIE, what do we need to do to get me back home where I supposedly have a tail and ears waiting for me."

Nona loooked like was unaccustomed to being spoken to sternly; at least from kids her age.  Sadly she lowered her hands and backed away from me.  "You...you want to go home already?"  I could be mistaken but it looked like she was about to cry.