What a Friend is
“Emma,” Lindsay whines, “where are you?” Suddenly, I am here, but I don’t know where I had been.
“Come on, let’s play hide-and-seek!”
“Okay, Linds, you go hide and I’ll count to twenty!”
I love Lindsay, she’s my best friend, and I am hers. Lindsay is the most beautiful child, with hazel eyes that seem to glow green when her perfect chocolate brown curls frame her face. Her skin is as tan as the sand on the beach that her family goes to in the summer. It’s about an hour away, but it’s one of her favorite places to go. Lindsay is full of energy, but she is always polite, remembering her manners when asking for things. She’s quite short, since her body hasn’t had time to grow as tall as mine. Lindsay and I look like we could be sisters. I have long brown hair, and I like it curled; my eyes are a shade of green that look just like when the moss on an old tree is rich and healthy color after a heavy rain; my skin is dark as the bark on an apple tree. I’m not that tall, but I am not short, at five foot five inches, making hide-and-seek hiding places easy.
“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty! Ready or not, here I come!”
We play fun games like this all the time. Whenever she needs someone to play dress up with, drink tea with her stuffed animals, or play games with, I’m there. In fact, as soon as she thinks of me, I am there, and I couldn’t understand how, at first.
Since she’s only four, she doesn’t attend school just yet, but she starts preschool soon. As of now, her mom and dad just had another baby, Jaimee, and she gets all of the attention. Linds told me that.
I look all around the house. I look under Lindsay’s bed, where her forgotten toys and blankets reside, the coat closet, with her mom and dad’s sophisticated adult coats and her cute blue polka-dotted coat. I look in the bathroom, in the laundry room with folded clothes lying everywhere and a basket of dirty clothes next to the washer. Finally, I try the family room. There’s two sofas in this room, both black leather. They’re expensive, and Lindsay isn’t allowed to eat on them. Her dad is usually in here, watching football or HGTV, eating burgers, and drinking soda. I don’t like her mom and dad so I avoid them, that’s why I came here last. I don’t like her mom and dad so I avoid them. They always ignore me and tell Lindsay to make some real friends. I don’t know how I’m not a real friend! I’m there for her more than they are.
But anyway, her dad, Brian, wasn’t in the family room today, which means he must be at his job in town as a businessman.
“Where are you Linds?” I playfully called out.
“I’m right here!” Lindsay burst out from under a white fuzzy blanket, smiling from ear to ear, laughing because she won the game. Her laugh floats around the room and bounces off the walls into my ears and I can’t help but laugh along with her. Her laugh starts off as a small giggle and transcends to a point where she accidentally snorts and then laughs even harder. It’s the funniest thing. Playing games with Lindsay is my favorite thing to do, and we played almost every day together. I remember one time when we played tag and she fell and scraped her knee. Her eyes swelled up with tears, her lips puckered, and her eyebrows furrowed, but she didn’t let a single tear slide down her cheek as she called out my name to come help, she’d been chasing me and I hadn’t stopped running. She’s a tough girl. Within the next five minutes we were already playing tag again, she didn’t even put a bandaid on because she wanted to get back to the game. But, now it was suppertime for her, so she didn’t need me anymore that day. While she started forgetting her need for me, I slowly faded out of her home and into mine. I have my own, square-shaped home and live alone with one bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen. I live in another world, I think. It’s very different from Lindsay’s world. Mine is full of people who look nothing alike, we all are completely individual, but we are all people nonetheless.
I’ve been taking some classes for a couple of years now at the town hall, where an older man teaches. We learn tons of information about friendship. It’s quite helpful for my friendship with Lindsay.
As the years progress, my visits with Lindsay have become more and more scarce. She’s gotten older now and she goes to public school and has made some friends, so she’s not as lonely anymore. Her best friends’ names are Lola and Kate; Lindsay tried to introduce me to them once, but they weren’t interested in meeting me. I think it hurt her feelings that her friends didn’t care about me, and she was embarrassed because her friends didn’t care to meet me when she had wanted to impress them. She didn’t have me over for awhile. I understood, though. In my class at the town hall, the professor had warned us about this phase of friendship that she’s going through, where she feels ashamed of me, her lifelong friend because none of her friends talk about having a Friend. The classes I attend are led by Professor Stein, he looks old, but that was how he was created. He was made when a young girl’s grandfather passed away. I was made because Lindsay was the oldest child, only having one sibling, and that sibling being a baby, she needed someone to play with, someone to be best friends with, that’s why I was created. Although the professor is very old,  his aging is at a standstill. I know Lindsay will eventually go through a time like this, and I understand that, but it still scares me, she is the only human who ever loved me. Since she hasn’t let me visit lately, I have made new relationships with other neglected Friends. We have little get togethers where we can talk about our Maker or let out frustrations about them. It’s our therapy. We talk about our favorite memories, and many times I find myself wondering if Lindsay is at the beach or if her and Lola or Kate are playing on her swing set in the back yard. I hope Lola and Kate are nice to her.
The time in my world is different than it is in her world. We do not measure time, there is no reason to. In her world, most things revolve around time. Many humans, I find, cannot comprehend the idea of eternity. I understand it completely, because I live in my own eternity between everytime I see Lindsay. Humans only have their lifetime, many of them quarrel over what they think comes after their life. Some believe they live on, some believe they become new people, and others believe there is nothing at all. They just don’t understand. Time is not real, they configured time thousands of generations back, but that’s only because of their ignorance. I’m not being rude, they just don’t have the capacity to comprehend eternity. They always believe there is an end, but the end does not exist.
I have waited in my own fragment of infiniteness for Lindsay to call me, I miss her, and I know that it has been quite some time since she has wanted to see me. I want to be there with her again, see her beautiful green eyes and touch her bouncing curls.
Lindsay wanted me to come over earlier today. I was so excited, I thought she wanted to play a game again or maybe even dress up, but when I arrived, I was in for a disheartening surprise. Lindsay is now ten years old, the last time I saw her she was eight. She and Jaimee get along just fine now, maybe because their mom and dad had another baby when she was nine and that baby had gotten all of the attention while Lindsay and Jaimee both felt they were being neglected. Lindsay wanted me to come because she wanted to tell me something incredibly dismal. She told me that her parents were fighting all of the time, they argued over everything: what to eat, where to shop, what time to wake the girls up. She said that her dad doesn’t live with them anymore, that he lives with her grandma and doesn’t always call everyday. She is so scared and confused, I’m glad she asked me to come and comfort her, she really needed it. She cried silent sobs into my shoulder, she didn’t want her mom to hear her cry and worry about her. So there I sat, with my best friend, as she cried her suffering heart out. She looked up at me with her distressed little face and I hugged her tight and told her not to be scared, that everything would be fine. This was such a beautifully painful embrace, I won’t ever forget this day, when she needed me most.
It turns out I was right, everything did turn out fine, Lindsay invited me over again and told me the good news; two months have passed now and her father just moved back in, I guess her parents just needed a break from each other for a little while. I am so delighted that her parents are together again, now Lindsay won’t be so gloomy all of the time, she doesn’t deserve to be miserable.
Lindsay called me again, so I came. Now, three years have passed and she is thirteen. She has grown so tall in these three years! She has freckles now, from the sun, her eyes still glow green and her chocolate brown hair bounces in its curls. She’s still a very well-behaved girl and I am so proud of her.
“Emma, I have something I need to talk to you about.” She sounded very grave.
“Okay, what’s up Linds?” I asked.
“Emma, I’m going to be in middle school soon, and you should know that I won’t be needing you now. I have to let you go.”
When I heard her say this, I felt a sharp stab in my heart,
“No, Linds it’s okay I can still be here for you!”
“No, Emma, you have your own life to live and I have my own.”
“You can’t be serious Lindsay! I have always been there for you, does that mean anything to you?”
“Yes, but Emma, you don’t understand. I love you but I can’t keep doing this!”
“Doing what, Lindsay? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you’re not real! You are a figment of my imagination! Lola and Kate think I’m crazy, my parents always have, and now I’m starting to think I’m crazy too! You have to leave! Just go Emma! You are dismissed.”
Those last words hung in the air for just a moment, this can’t be happening. Lindsay and I are best friends, how could she do this to me? I am someone who looks similar to a human, but I am not one. I am a Friend.
Once a Friend is created they will never die. But, you can be taken out of existence, this is called Dismissal. No one really knows or understands what happens after Dismissal, since no one has ever come back afterwards. This happens quite often, we learned about it in our classes. Although you are made for the Maker and they need you, there will come a time in their life when they think that they don’t need you anymore, most of the time, the Maker thinks they are old enough to handle themselves. There are many others like me, who look like humans, but there are Friends who look like pets, toys, or like what humans call aliens. But I am real to Lindsay, how could she say those horrible things to me? I look at her and I’m starting to feel sick, I can’t imagine what my life would be completely without her. She has made me wait years to see her, and now she wants to get rid of me? This has to be some sort of twisted nightmare.
“But Linds, you’re not crazy, I am as real as anyone else in this world as I am to you. Don’t make me leave, please Lindsay! I don’t want to leave you!”
She stands there, arms crossed, as she stares back at me with no emotion. Her green eyes are red with tears, just like when she fell and scraped her knee. She still doesn’t want to look weak and cry.
“Lindsay!” I say as I start to see my feet and hands fading out of existence.
“Please! Don’t do this!”
This time though, Lindsay let that single tear drift down her cheek. As I fade, I start to feel like my body is going through some sort of shredder. I scream out as the invisible blades cut me into nothingness.
“Lindsay, please...I’m scared.”
Lindsay pulled me into a strong embrace.
“Goodbye, Emma, and thank you. Thank you for always being there for me when I needed you most. I love you.”
She held me tight, like how I held her when her dad left. She brushed my hair with her fingers and rocked back and forth to try and soothe me as my body was being destroyed and I was breaking down. I have never cried before, it does not feel good, my face is soaked with the tears of my broken heart. The blades rose higher and I could tell that it was almost the end for me, my dismissal was almost complete. I hugged Lindsay back with every ounce of the being I had left.
“I love you more.”
And then, the blades consumed me.
I don’t know where I am right now, or how long I’ve been here. It is dark here, pitch black. I can’t feel my body. Is this where we Friends go after Dismissal? I sense that I am alone, I can’t hear anyone else here.
I’m starting to feel a little panicky, what is going on? Why is there only nothingness in every direction? I look down to check on my hands, but they aren’t here! I feel as if my limbs are ghostly now. I can’t see them, but I feel them. I swing my spectral arms to where my torso should be, and again, there is nothing. Where is my body? What is this place? The place where only I know that I am real, where my body doesn’t even know it’s real. I’m so confused! I try to take a step but nothing in my sight has changed, everything is still black and quiet. I start to run blindly through this world of darkness as desperately tried to grasp the the any idea of where I might be. Then, suddenly, I saw what seemed like a blink of the world, and I stop running. A few more glimpses appeared, it was like someone was waking up and I saw what they did. These eyes were connected to a body, the body moved, sat up, then walked to a bathroom. The eyes look up into the mirror. It’s Lindsay!  Am I in Lindsay’s head? I must be, there’s no other place this could be! Lindsay gets around for her classes at her new school, junior high. She eats lunch and laughs with friends whom I have never seen before, they definitely weren’t Lola or Kate. I don’t understand why I’m here. After Lindsay’s school day, she puts all of her books in her bag and starts her walk back to her house. But, on the walk home, she starts getting nervous, so was I. There was a strange, dark vehicle with a man in it, he was staring at Lindsay with a glare of heinous intentions. He starts the engine of the vehicle and starts moving slowly toward her, trying to seem inconspicuous. This cannot be good.
“Run Lindsay!” I try to scream loudly, but I can’t! I only hear the echoes of my thoughts bounce off of these dark and imperceptible walls. I assume that I can only speak through my thoughts.
“Run as fast as you can!” I say to her again.
And she does, as soon as I say it. She sprints down the sidewalk and cuts a sharp left on a different sidewalk,  the shady man in black behind her has started to drive faster.
“Lindsay, you have got to get home!” I think to myself.
Thankfully, there was a mother out on this sidewalk with her child who was riding a bike. She sees Lindsay sprinting and looks alarmed.
“Lindsay, she can help you!”
“Help! Help! Please help me! Someone call the police!” Emma shouted.
The woman picked her child up and off his bike and dashed towards us. With one hand she held her son and the other she whipped her phone out and presumably dialed 911.
“Hey! Get out of here you low life!” The woman screamed at the man in the car.
A voice came out of the speaker on her phone, “911 what’s your emergency?”
“I am with a young girl on Short Street, some man in a dark burgundy car was chasing her, I think he was trying to kidnap her!” This woman might have just helped save Lindsay’s life.
“You’re safe now Linds,” I said as the villainous man hastily drove off. She exhaled a huge breath of relief, knowing that she could have been hurt. I just realized something incredible. Whenever I spoke to Lindsay, she replied with doing what I told her to. She listened to every word I said to her. Am I now her instinct? That’s got to be it, this must be what Dismissal is! I have to keep her safe, no matter what, because when she dismissed me, she gave me the opportunity to help her when she didn’t know she needed it. I must be her guardian angel, and I will use this power of will to protect her as best as I can for the rest of her life. Now, I can always be with her, I think it is much better this way. Lindsay didn’t know that when she dismissed me, she gave me the ticket for a front row seat to her life. I see everything that she sees now, and I can try to shield her from the dangers of her world. She has always wanted the best for me, but she didn’t realize that what was in my best interest, was also what she needed. Thank you Lindsay, for showing me what a friend is.