[ WP ] You 've fallen in love with your imaginary friend .


 
 A sudden stinging in his hand roused him from his contemplative staring. Right between his index finger and his middle finger. The cigarette had burned right down to his hand again as he sat in the overstuffed armchair in the living room. 
 
 
 Reflexively, the cigarette dropped to the floor onto the carpet. It ’ s glowing ember immediately left a black dot on the red carpet beneath him. He moved his foot over and squashed the ember with his sneaker; there were now eight more or less identical dots in a random pattern on the living room floor. 
 
 
 He had been sitting there thinking all night. He was lonely, afraid. 
 
 The sirens frightened him. 
 
 
 Out on the city street a police siren blared its obnoxious alarm, first coming down the street, growing louder and louder, rising to a screeching pitch, and then gradually fading away. 
 
 
 He missed the comfort of Alice ’ s voice. Even amid all the others, the missed the soothing, distinctly feminine voice. Its high pitched, naturally female noise cutting above the garbled mess below. 
 
 
 Soaring if not covering the garbled, nasty baritone of the bad voices. The bad voices he had gotten used to; he had ignored. 
 
 
 He squinted, spying the orange cylinder on the kitechen sink. Did he take them this morning? He couldn ’ t remember. He remembered taking them yesterday morning; but what about last night? 
 
 
 He felt miserably lonely. 
 
 
 He wanted a comforting voice to soothe him. 
 
 
 She soared so high above the rest did it even matter? He could ignore the rest, he had learned to do that years ago. 
 
 
 The apartment around him was so grimy and the police sirens sounded on the streets below..it seemed like every ten minutes. 
 
 
 She was an angel and he couldn ’ t hear her any more. She was there to protect him and he had blotted her out. Like a hand shielding a face from the sun. No good could come from it. 
 
 
 He walked over to the kitchen sink, and poured what was left of the cylinder down the drain… 

