i had an imaginary friend when i was younger (didn't we all? or was that just for the lonelier children?). his name was skellybob, and he was a plastic skeleton. one of the kinds that your mom would impulsively buy for halloween. i came home from school one day, and he was lying in my bed. he looked lonely too, so i just scooted him over and layed down beside him. he told me his name was skellybob, that he had no mother, and that he had named himself. he thought it was a snazzy sounding name, a catchy one, and i agreed. his laugh sounded like rattling chalk. we would sneak on to the roof to stargaze, and i would point at the sky and ask him the names of each of the stars. when he couldn't remember one, he would let me name it. my mother tried to put him in the storage closet after the 31st, but he has claustrophobia, and talking to him beneath to door crack wasn't fun, so i picked the lock. i even introduced him to food. we found out that his favorite thing to eat was carrot soup with oyster crackers. he was also fond of gouda, as most people are. when i returned from school one day, i found myself greeted by an empty bed. he was gone, and he hadn't bothered to leave a note. we used to stay up late, and talk about our dreams. he always wanted to be a star. he said he would move to L.A. and become an actor, or maybe a model. thin was in, and how much thinner could you get than skellybob? so, i just assumed he had fled to some big city to start his career. he had gotten tired of dreaming, of making do with fantasizing about the stars from a shingled roof. i lay in bed that night, wondering why he hadn't taken me with. why he had left me to stargaze and survive upon his broken wishes. i could imagine his voice, the raspy rumble of cartilage. "it's nothing personal," he would say. his sharp humerus bones would jut up, shrugging the bits of shoulder that he still had left. "but dreams aren't cheap, bud. and i don't got enough quarters for the both of us." where ever he is now, i hope he's doing alright. sometimes, i imagine coming home one day to find him sitting on my bed again, with two tickets to L.A. in between his knuckles. but inside, i know he's right. dreams aren't cheap.
