To some, I'm artistically living out my imagination instead of my memory. To others, I'm foolishly regressing. Ehh... it's a toss up on any day. Either way, Avalon is beyond imaginary. She's the reason why I've begun observing those delusively innocuous particles that hover around light bulbs. She's inspired me to gradually shed my skin of innocence and begin questioning people for their motives. She's the reason why I'll never settle.

Inseparable as my eyelids, this friend and foe, lives in a 1 liter, recyclable plastic bottle of seemingly transparent, but spiritually opaque water.

Last time I had an imaginary pal was in high school, well, she wasn't really imaginary...it was my dead grandmother. There was this lake in front of my parents' place… I would go there after midnight, every Wednesday for an entire winter...the moonlight gives the snow an eerie glow and little pieces of ice float on the surface.. the only sound you hear is when they crack a bit... I would wait for a few minutes and ..I would see her. Maybe it was the cold and my watery eyes...but I could swear it was her. She never talked back. But she would listen and smile whenever appropriate. I even made her laugh one night but you couldn't really hear her.

One night, my mom caught me sneaking back into the house. She demanded to know where I was and I told her everything. Mskin setiyo you can imagine her horror....

Something about water …the Horror, the Horror.

I found myself giggling hysterically on my own yesterday afternoon in class. She allowed me to make fun of her, watched me and listened. I had to make fun of the fact that she may be the right pigmentation, Christian denomination and sufficiently conservative for his liking, but they could never laugh at the same things that we do. She would never understand why he would rant for hours on end on the fate of Job, and I on Ecclesiastes. Besides, she's got an unbecoming hip-to-waist ratio and the creativity of a log.

Yep, the fact that I heal by patronizing others, "imaginary others", is no vice in my opinion.

But who said I escape with impunity.

That same evening, her eyes metamorphosed from shimmering to bloodshot scathing. Her look, like a black shroud that cloaked my inner confidence and highlighted my inadequacies: "yenE emebEt, mechEm ay'semTeleshm. He doesn't want you. He left you. You are an inconvenience."

He would grow to love her, of out convenience.

I mourned. Again.

Why do you give me such funny ideas? Every time I read your emails I find myself digging deep inside trying to find something. Now I am determined to find an imaginary friend inside my bottle of Evian.

Embi alech, yenewa. bisedbat.. bilat biserat... I'm on my fifth bottle and since I can't get frequent flyer miles for trips to the W…I'm about to quit. Dirowinus, ye ferensay neger. I might have had better luck with a bottle of ambo or dengolo.

You know it's funny, ehit, I never considered imaginary friends… imaginary. You don't need to dig. They live in different personalities. We talk to them, hate to love them and love to hate them. We all have 'em…

…all projections of what we're not.