My Imaginary Friend

After the party, it was cleaning up time. Leon was put on his bed a little later than he’s used to and Hella stayed to help Meike and Daniel set things up on their house.

Meike could tell her best friend was a little upset with the fact that Jimmy hadn’t really showed up there that day. Even though Hella really was expecting him to make an appearance, Meike didn’t tell her what she had seen after the candle blowing. Hella would definitely flip out and Daniel would probably prefer not to bring up that subject again now, Meike sensed. So she just kept it to herself, cause it’s not a big deal anyway, just something from her mind. She was getting so obsessed with her son’s imaginary friend that she would even see him now. She thought it was probably the effect Hella’s crazy drinks had on her.

When Hella has said her goodbyes, Meike and Daniel took their turns on the shower and then lied in bed to finally take a rest from that eventful day.

“When you brought the tickets for me, you knew that Avenged is on the line-up, right?” Meike placed one of her arms on his chest softly and rested her head on his shoulder. He embraced her tight in response, with a nice smile on his face.

“Hmm, not really… They are? It was just a coincidence then.” he laughed and she promptly raised her head to face his silly features and give a slight tap on his chest.

“Hey, little joker, come here!” she approached his mouth and covered his grin with her lips right away. Their kiss got deeper and urgent when Daniel suddenly broke apart with a smirk.

“Oh, my birthday gift is coming earlier this year? I really should’ve thought about buying those tickets before…” she giggled softly before being attacked by her husband’s eager mouth.

That was the moment she heard a cracking noise coming from outside to interrupt their moment. Daniel kept kissing and hugging her as she opened her eyes to notice he didn’t hear that sound she heard.

“Honey… Have you heard this?” she stopped his kiss abruptly with her words. He just nodded a no and was about to pull her closer again when she parted from his arms. “Just wait here. I’m gonna go check downstairs, ok?”

“There’s nothing in there, Mei, come on, come back here!” he tried to hold her hand back but she was already set up with her robe and a heavy long coat above it. “Do you want me to go check it up for you?”

“No, no, it’s okay. Stay here. I’ll be back to finish what we started.” she stated and went straight to her backyard. She knew she was being really brave to go there alone but something inside her told her so.

Meike observed mindfully everything from the glass door and with her heart now soothed from the quiet landscape out there, she just turned her back to climb the stairs back to her husband. But the cracking sound came again, louder. She felt an adrenaline rush before turning her back again to face the backyard. And when she did that, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

Jimmy’s full and clear body standing outside the glass door and waving at her with a smug smile on his lips. Holy shit!

Meike stood froze on her feet, exactly like she thought she would be if meeting her Avenged Sevenfold idols someday. But she never thought in a million years she would meet one of them on his afterlife.

Wait a minute! You don’t actually believe in this, do you? Hello!! This is a fucking hallucination, Meike!

Now the tall figure was calling her out with a sign made by his hand. Meike squeezed her eyes and heavy sighed before opening them again. Maybe he would just disappear like this. But no, not really, he was still in there with a puzzled feature and staring at her with his vivid blue eyes.
She just gave out a long breathing again before finally stepping forward in Jimmy’s direction with a slow path. She opened the door carefully without ever letting her eyes pull out from his penetrating gaze.

“Can we just…talk here outside?” she felt a sharp cold air brush on her hair as these words were coming out of his mouth. But that wasn’t just the natural wind from the rising of the spring. It was something even colder than the harshest winter on Germany.

“Please…if this is just my mind playing tricks on me, just fucking say it and I’ll admit myself straight on a psychiatric ward right now.” Meike kept her voice down though her tone was sincerely rude towards her favorite drummer.

“I can’t say anything for sure now but…”

“So just go away, I have to work early tomorrow and I’m not up for pranks from my own brain now so…” she was about to close the door when he held it strongly and stepped inside the house, standing just a few centimeters from a perplexed Meike. She felt his strength to open the door. If that wasn’t real…

“It’s…it’s just…too cold outside. Just say what you have to say here.” She felt her knees starting to quiver. At each minute that passed by, she was more convinced he was really there.

“Do you really wanna stay here and startle your husband with your voice chatting with the walls?” yeah, that creature she didn’t know exactly how to call had a point. Meike hesitated a bit when he nodded towards the door with his head but after a few seconds she was convinced it was really better to get out of there.

Jimmy got out and she follow suit, trying hard to make her knees and hands to stop trembling. He sat exactly where Hella was sitting a few days ago while discussing Meike’s birthday party. She sat on the other side of the bench, still reluctant and a bit too much far from him.

“So… How should I… call you?” she focused her sight on the movement of the tree leaves to divert from his disturbing glare at her. She could tell he was smiling now.

“What? Oh, come on, Meike, it’s me, The Rev, I’m no boogeyman! Just call me anything you want me to call.”

“Okay…Jimmy, what exactly are you doing here…I mean, here with us…with the…living people?” she never stutter but now she was doing that a lot, even inside her own head.

“Well…I don’t know much about that yet but I guess I can tell you what I know. I died 5 years ago, right? It really got me unprepared, you know… Yeah, but, you know, that’s life. You can’t always get what you want…” he chuckled and Meike had to look at him finally. Rolling Stones? Really, Jimmy?

“Sorry for this stupid quote…” Meike formed a tiny smile on her lips now. “Anyway… yeah, I died, it wasn’t planned, blah-blah-blah, that same old rockstar anthem shit. I wonder when we are gonna learn…” she looked at the ground now and thought about how he could make jokes about his own death so easily. Yeah, that’s definitely the Jimmy she imagined. “So when I got ‘up there’…” he stopped to throw his gaze at her again. Instead of facing him right away, she gave it a peek with the corner of her eye and stood still, she didn’t know what to do or what to say there, she was just too damn curious.

“What?” she faced him a bit afraid.

“You’re not gonna say anything about me going up there?” he looked flabbergasted in his own silly way. “I thought that info itself was really surprising.”

“Yeah, in fact, it is a bit surprising. So, there’s really heaven and hell out there?”

“Pretty much. And since I’ve received Stairway to Heaven as my eternal soundtrack, well, I can’t complain, right?”

“You definitely shouldn’t…”

“Yeah, so I decided to just follow someone’s rules for the first time in my...” he cleared his throat. “You got me, obey their sayings, pay my dues and stuff like that.”

“Who’s they?” Meike was really immersed on that conversation now. She was getting progressively more comfortable around Rev.

“I don’t know exactly who’s they, I can’t see any of them, I can only hear their voices. It’s a blur when I’m there with them and that blur was even worse at the beginning, when I was still on the…healing process. At that time, it was all blank.”

“So now you’re fully recovered?”

“I don’t know for sure. I didn’t just have body damage, you know? I had longer time to fix my soul. I guess I’m still healing it bit by bit.” His voice cracked on the end and Meike noticed it. “They made me watch what my best friends and my family were going through after my passing the entire time. I swear I almost lost it.” He sniffed one time like gulping a crying. “But they said it was all part of the process. This stupid motherfucking process I still don’t know where is taking me…” he sounded angry now. Meike felt a strong ache on her heart with all that info. It was too much for her to handle but she really wanted to know the motive of his presence there.

“In fact…I have slight idea of where this is taking me. There’s a rumor that if you just do your time around here, you can finally ‘rest in peace’. And that means you can choose the scenario to spend your eternity. Your own fucking paradise!”

“Wow, like…you can pick anywhere you want?” Meike had her eyes wide open at Jimmy now.

“Yes, that’s what I heard. My own fucking night club, with good live music, infinite women and booze. John Bonham, Keith Moon and me would be like the inseparable trio up there, playing all day long, drinking all night long and raising hell 24/7.” He chuckled again. “A dead man can dream, right?”

“Sounds like fun. But are you really sure they allow you to drink up there?” she let herself enjoy that conversation a little more and finally laughed, he just shrugged, he didn’t know how to answer it. Then she thought she was the luckiest fan on the whole world to be able to have this casual talk with Jimmy. She was actually feeling good about that now and being around him was kind of…natural?

“But for that to happen, I still have a lot to pay. It’s not because I’m in heaven that I’m free from all the sins I committed down here. And believe me, it was a lot of abusing time. A lot. And finally…that’s why I’m here with Leon.”

“I don’t get it…”

“They had given me a mission. I’m like a…what they call…”

“A guardian angel?”

“Yeah, sort of. I’m more like a crazy and invisible friend to those kids. I don’t have wings or halos or angelical stuff like that, if that was your next question.”

“Oh but you can surely go from here to there and disappear in seconds, right?”

“I have my tricks…” he winked at her with a remarkable smile.

They stood in silence a few seconds with a grin on both their faces. Meike even forgot she was out there with him for a lot of minutes now.

“So… I heard you got tickets for Rock Am Ring festival this year, huh?” Jimmy restarted.

“Oh yeah, apparently you know more than you think.”

“Are you planning to take Leon with you? It would be a great time for him.” She frowned immediately.

“No! Of course not, I can’t take my 4 year old son to a concert of that dimension. Are you crazy?” Meike sounded squeaky now.

“Oh, outdoors festivals like that are completely safe, we always see a lot of families and children in there having fun with their parents. There’s a lot of green space to run and to hear good music. It’s not dangerous actually.”

“Well, I rather not take risks like that. Besides…I don’t really wanna take my son to a place where he can see a lot of wrong things, you know. People drinking, consuming drugs and acting out. His innocence doesn’t need to be taken away just yet.”

“On that part you’re probably right. But he won’t even pay attention to that when he can feel the power of live music. You see how he likes to hear our songs in the car. I was even trying to teach him some beats in the other day. Smart kid he is.” He chuckled

“Jimmy, I’m not dragging my son to this world. It’s no and period.” She was totally sure and determined.

“What do you mean, this world?” he felt offended.

“The world that…took you away from us.” that creeping silence built in among them again. Jimmy was trying to find the right words there.

“It’s not music’s fault I’m here. It’s my fault, my life style that brought me to the other side. The only thing that really amused me on this world was music. I was born to this and I discovered that really early in my life thanks to my parents. You gotta see if…music is really his thing, Meike. You gotta show him the magic, don’t keep hiding it from him. He will find out sooner or later.” Meike listened carefully and although his words sounded so honest and taken directly from the bottom of his heart to her, she wasn’t totally convinced yet.

“Jimmy is…is really late now. I completely lost track of time here, Daniel will be worried if I don’t come back up there. Can we…talk about this some other time?” she closed her eyes to how dumb that question sounded. Of course she couldn’t talk to him some other time. He would be gone by now, probably just for Leon to see him. And maybe this was all just a…dream.

“Okay but promise me you’ll think about it. Promise me!” she was ready to walk back inside her house when Jimmy touched softly on her hand. Her eyes widened again with the warm feeling she felt when he did that. The warmest feeling of all she had experienced. How can…he be warm like that if…if…

His peaceful and hypnotizing blue eyes drank her brown ones for a few seconds. When she felt like she could never get away from that intense gaze, he let go of her hand and she got back to reality.

“I gotta go…bye Jimmy.” She turned her back, got inside her house, locked the door and went upstairs without ever looking back. She didn’t wanna think she would never see Jimmy again. She just wanted to rest her head on her pillow to wait for a new day to rise.

Standing on the door to her bedroom, she noticed Daniel was on a profound sleep just by the rhythm of his breathing. Yeah, she took too long to come back, he was too tired to wait for her. Meike didn’t feel sad about it, she just laid back on the bed and tried to relive those crazy and unique events from her birthday until she could join him in a good night of sleep.

Notes

yeaaah, Meike psychiiicccc lalalaaaaa

=D

hit uuss, we wont hurt u! I promise! xD