My Imaginary Best Friend
Tom Linkletter is sure of three things: He has schizophrenia, his favorite color is every shade of blue and his best friend, Adam Hock, is a hallucination. The only problem is, Adam isn't a hallucination. Adam is real and Tom is going to really need his help. After all, it isn’t every day a journalism post-grad takes on a white collar crime syndicate.
I used to wonder when i entered university if I was developing mental illness. The sleep deprivation, the emotional highs and tumultuous lows somtimes made me feel like I was losing my mind and I knew that mental illness often presents in those in their early twenties. My mother, a social worker, assured me I was showing nothing resembling it, but when I was about 18 I watched a Beautiful Mind and I wondered if it was possible that any of my friends weren’t real. Many of my friendships were with people from different groups and so they never interacted. I liked the idea of paper dolls and the fragile connections that they have together. They are seemingly identical but every so often one comes out with skinny arms or an oddly shaped head and i liked the idea of playing with imperfection amidst a seemingly perfect set.
By J. Pellow