Imaginary World

When I was a kid, I believed in imaginary things, as we all did, Santa Claus, mermaids, dragons, unicorns and even imaginary friends. However, no one ever told me these things were fake. No one ever said these things were just a peaceful distraction from the ominous and mysterious real world. Sometimes I’d be talking or singing with my imaginary friends and hear someone say, “I wish I could be a kid again.” I never understood what they meant. Why would they want to be a kid again? I can’t wait to grow up. These thoughts would circle my clear mind then quickly rush out, like a small leaf in a quick river.  It wasn’t until I was ten years old that I finally understood what they meant. It was that understanding that quickly swept me from childhood to adulthood. My trouble-free mind became a bit more complicated and my world of imagination was sliced in half. 

That day, all I could focus on was the loose tooth that would do anything but fall out. It was hanging on like the last seed of a dandelion. I couldn’t wait to put it under my pillow so the tooth fairy would come and leave me a gift. Everyone would tell me to simply pull it out, but I knew the tooth fairy wouldn’t give me as nice of a gift if I did that. I was going to wait, Mom and Dad always say patience is key, I told myself. So it went on, days and days of showing everyone my loose tooth, like it was a trophy no one else could possibly receive. Days and days of waking up and checking if it was still there, as if my restful sleep would knock it loose. I’d check after each meal, after each drink and anytime I could see a mirror. The suspense was like when my parents told me I could have dessert…once I had finished my vegetables. 

Then finally, after I bit into a cracker just hard enough, the tooth fell out. My excitement could be heard from towns over, it was like those imaginary unicorns had jumped out in front of me and pooped rainbows. Now instead of showing everyone my loose tooth, I showed them the fallen tooth. “Look,” I’d yell, with my hands reached in my mouth to show them the new gap. My parents then handed me a container to put the tooth in, which I shook as if it were a maraca. That night I went to bed earlier than the sun, shoved my tooth under the pillow, and tried to sleep so the tooth fairy would come. However, that sleep did not find me. I tossed and turned uncontrollably and looked beneath the pillow each minute in case the tooth teleported away without me noticing. Each noise I heard woke me up and struck a match in me that screamed “tooth fairy!” 

Then sometime in the night, I woke up to a noise outside my door. This is it! I thought. The tooth fairy is finally here! I looked underneath my pillow one last time to be sure she hadn’t come yet when I heard my door open. I quickly shot back under my covers and pretended to sleep. When I heard footsteps close to my bed I tried to sneak a peek. No one has ever seen the tooth fairy before, what if she’s invisible? What if she has bright pink wings? These thoughts were quickly flushed out of my mind when I realized that it wasn’t the bright pink wings of the tooth fairy peeking through the seam of my heavy eyelids, but rather the brown, worn leather of my dad’s old slippers. He must be saying goodnight, I thought. That thought was wrong, so wrong that it took a machete and cut straight through my imaginary world. Straight through everything I believed and everything I relied on. The unicorns, dragons and mermaids were dragged away from my world leaving me with nothing but reality. The moment I felt my dad’s hand reach underneath my pillow, was the moment that machete landed it’s strike. 

Once he left my room, I hesitantly lifted up my pillow. Five dollars sat there. Five dollars left by my dad, not the tooth fairy. Because the tooth fairy wasn’t real, and if the tooth fairy wasn’t real then how could my unicorns or Santa Claus be real? How could that world everyone wrapped so tightly around me be fake, but also feel so peaceful and true? It was like the wrap was strung so tight that I couldn’t see anything beyond it, but also so tight to the point where it began to stretch and tear until it completely split and fell off. The moment I became an adult was when that protective wrap fell off and left me bare to the elements of the real world.

“I wish I could be a kid again.”