text: How many of you had an imaginary friend? I was a latchkey kid growing up. My father served in the army overseas, and my mother took up a job at home to further support us. My mother didn't return until a couple of hours after school let out, so I'd be alone for a good while. I was an only child and had trouble making friends, so this compounded my loneliness. There was a playground about two blocks from my house that I'd frequent after coming home from school. I could get there faster by cutting through a small (but thick) forest clearing behind my house. It depended on how I was feeling whether I'd do so, as the canopy of the tree line made the forest below dark as all get out. Some days I'd cut straight through, and some days it made me far too rattled and anxious to try. The playground itself was very old. There had been some additions to it over the years, as well as some parts getting replaced for safety reasons. However, I don't think anything short of a full power wash could get all the rust off the swing-set chains and corners of the jungle gym. I overheard kids at my school talking about how creepy the place was now and then. Some even came up with their own urban legends surrounding the place. I never found it that scary though. To me, the wear was almost comforting. Whenever the playground was empty, I'd imagine all the kids who had played there. I'd imagine them in all the old outfits I saw from vintage photos in history books at school. They'd throw around old slang and lingo amongst each other, and I'd watch from the lone swing set in the corner of the playground. The Loser's swing. It was called that due to being a swing set with only one swing. Over time, the second swing's attachment to the chains had degraded in an unrepairable way. So, they detached it. From what I understand, the playground had already been on the chopping block for years. The town didn't want to bother shelling out the cash to replace the whole thing. So, only one person could swing in it. Instead of being jealous or fighting over the seat, most kids who came there would make fun of whoever was using it. After all, to use the swing was to use it alone. You don't play with anyone else, you just swing. By yourself. Even with that kind of baggage attached to it, it never dissuaded me from using it. I was pretty used to being by myself, so it wasn't hard to tune everyone else out. Also, I was scared of falling off the jungle gym. I'd seen it happen before, and it looked like it hurt. After a while, I made up an imaginary friend. I sort of modeled him after one of my dad's friends, because I thought he was cool. Called him Rob. An older guy in his thirties, who seemed to have an answer for everything you asked him, and a story to match. When I used the swing, I'd envision the swing next to me repairing itself, and he'd take the seat. I'd ask him why the sky was blue, and he'd say "Well, 'cause it's God's favorite color!". I'd ask how planes stay in the air, and he'd tell me they had people behind it blowing it forward real hard. I'd ask all the questions kids ask, and he'd always have an answer right away. Only one question seemed to stump him. I asked, "Why do people die?". He looked at me, tilted his head, and stared for a long while. He seemed to be as confused as I was but tried to come up with an answer. "Well," he said, clapping his broad hands over denim-clad knees, "Maybe it's just some people's time to go." Usually, he was funny and reassuring. I remember feeling upset by this answer. It felt very apathetic. Though, I was too young to understand what the word "apathy" meant, let alone place why his answer upset me. I wanted to feel like there was a reason people died. He didn't give me one. "... why do they have to go?" "They just have to." I stopped asking as many questions after that. I'd ask him to tell me stories while we were swinging. As the days went on, though, the playground lost more of its color. The paint was peeling off more and more, and fewer and fewer kids came to play. There were rumors that they were going to completely tear the place down any day now. It was sad for me, but the playground had become less of a comfort over time. I struggled to keep up the conversation with my imaginary friend. I couldn't even maintain the image of all those old kids playing here. It was hard imagining anyone playing here anymore. I remember the last time I went, though. I had been getting bullied in school for a while. I don't want to mention him by his real name, so I'll call him John. As far as bullying goes, it wasn't anything too awful. He'd pick on me, sure, but it was just name-calling, or teasing me for not having friends. He never tried to hit me, or anything like that, but he was relentless. One day, he heard that I'd go to the playground after school. So, he decided to come visit it. I can't remember what he said when he showed up. Some generic teasing, I'm sure. Making fun of me for using the Loser's swing. Again, nothing out of the realm of very basic schoolyard bullying. I tuned it out the best I could and kept swinging, my gaze glued straight ahead. He got mad that I was ignoring him and grabbed the chains mid-swing to stop me. That's when Rob got up. I remember his face twisting into a terrifying, enraged expression, his face red as a beet. He pointed at John and screamed at him to get away from me, and that he'd beat him half-to-death if he didn't turn tail. I flinched, completely horrified by how angry he was and wanting to shrivel into myself to hide from it. I don't know what came over him and had never seen him act like that before. That isn't even what haunts me about it, though. What scares me most, is that John seemed to hear it. I remember him staring at me in shock, like he couldn't believe what he heard. Taking the opportunity, I stumbled off the back of the swing and took off as fast as I could. I cut through the forest, shielding myself with my arms from all the branches and brambles. It felt like the forest stretched into forever as I ran, my heart pounding, my lungs burning. Even though I knew that I was all alone, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being chased. That if I didn't make it out of the woods, no one would ever find me again. After running, and stumbling, and picking myself up over and over, I finally saw the light from the other side. I could see my house in the distance. I swear I heard a voice calling to me from behind, telling me to wait. I ignored it and kept pushing until I was clear of the woods and safely past the fence of my backyard. I ran into my house, locked all the doors and windows, and hid in my closet for hours until I heard my mom come home. I tried my best to act like nothing had happened, but she knew something was up. She was always worried about me. I ate dinner and went to bed early, clutching the blanket to my body like a protective cover the whole night. That was the last time I ever saw John. I didn't see Rob for a long time, either. In the following days, they had put up missing posters all over the neighborhood for John. He hadn't come home, and I seemed to be the last person who ever saw him. The police visited our house and asked me some basic questions about it since a few of his friends knew he had come to the playground for me specifically. I gave them a general summary of what happened, though I left out Rob's place in the story for obvious reasons. They seemed to accept what I said and didn't come to question me again after that. After all, there wasn't much more I could tell them. There were rumors about me after that in school, though. Some of the other kids thought I killed him and hid his body in the woods. As much as it upset me at the time, I can't blame them all that much. We were kids, and I was always distant and anti-social. If I was in their shoes, I might have thought the same thing. For the rest of my school life, I did my best to keep my head down and stay out of trouble. I made a few friends here and there, thankfully. It wasn’t a lot of friends, but they were good ones. Without them, I could have turned into an insane recluse as I got older. As I mentioned before, I didn't see Rob after that. I dropped the "imaginary friends" entirely, too traumatized by what had happened to bother humoring the idea anymore. Sometimes I'd lay awake in my bed late at night, terrified of looking out the window. I'd envision him looking back at me from the black forest, making that same, twisted expression. The fear faded over time, but it still lingered in the back of my mind now and then. This takes us up to now, though. Recently, my mother passed away. My father had died quite a while before that overseas, so she was all I had left in terms of family. The grief broke me. I retreated into myself after the funeral, content to live alone and not form any more connections. The idea of losing anyone close to me again was mortifying, and it was hard to imagine surviving that kind of pain a third time. That's when Rob came back. At first, I would catch a shape just out of the corner of my eyes when I looked in the mirror. I accepted it as exhaustion and was more preoccupied with marveling at how shitty I was starting to look from neglecting my needs. It kept happening, though. Sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of him sitting down in one of my chairs, and he'd be gone by the time I'd look back. I'd wake up to the sound of the TV on in the living room, usually on some sports channel. No matter what I did though, I could never catch a full look at him. I started to assume I had finally snapped and completely lost it. I was second-guessing what was real and what was fake at every turn, and the feeling made me isolate myself even more. I started to think I was a potential threat to society, and that I'd be better off either not associating with it, or dead. In my lowest moment, that's when I heard his voice again for the first time. It was distant and faint. Though, I could swear he said "Pick yourself up, champ!". I bawled on the floor when I heard it. It was a cocktail of wonderful, horrible emotions. It was a familiar voice, reassuring me. It was like hearing an old voicemail from a long-lost friend. At the same time, it was hard to forget what had happened all those years ago, and why I was scared of him in the first place. Not to mention that hearing voices in my head didn't feel like a great sign. But at least I didn't feel quite as alone. It was sort of a wake-up call. I tried putting myself back together. I started sleeping on a more regular schedule and made sure to eat at least three times a day. I tried reaching out to old friends and socializing more. I had grown agoraphobic over the months I had spent locked away inside. So, I did my best to get outside for as long as I could manage each day. I've gotten a lot better. I feel healthier than I ever have, and I'd like to say I'm "okay" again. I've recovered, at least. Only, I thought that would make Rob fade away, back into the recesses of my mind. He hasn't. I still see him. Whether out of the corners of my eye, in old photos, or even in the distance outside my house. I still see him. Sometimes, at night, I hear his voice muffled outside my window. I try to pick it up on my phone, and the nights I leave it recording are the nights he doesn't talk. That's not the only thing bothering me, though. John's case is being reinvestigated. The playground was torn down decades ago. However, they've recently been clearing the forest behind my old house as well. While they were cutting down trees, part of a tree trunk collapsed when it struck the ground. Inside the debris, they found remains of a child's skeleton. The bones matched some of John's old X-rays. No one knows how they got in there, as the portion the bones were in was toward the very top of the tree. A few feet below it, words carved into the tree read: HAD TO GO They've started finding carvings like this all over the forest, too. I'm not sure what idea scares me more. Rob being a part of my imagination, or Rob being real. All I know is that I keep seeing him more and more, and it feels like he's angry at me. And I'm too scared to look at him anymore.