[ WP ] You 've been an Imaginary Friend for the past 500 years . On the day of your retirement , you speak with a graduating class of new IF 's about your most memorable children .

The time has changed. The people have changed. The children, too, have changed. As the graduating class of imaginary friend of the year, I expect you're fully aware about the state of the job market out there. Children no longer seek us in their young years. Children do n't even need us to comfort them. Their fictional friends are inside those monitors, screens, TVs, video games, and when that do n't work, they'll go for these psychiatric drugs. So that they can get rid of us. Nowadays, there simply is n't a call for us. Is n't a seat in their heart for us to sit on. I say again, the time... has changed. 
 
 I'll tell you a story about this kid I was in charge of. Once. One night. But I wo n't forget about her. In my five hundred of years of service, in human years, her case is the most memorable. 
 
 It was Christmas night. One of those special human holiday where kids get presents for being kids. A special day for them. I got a call from my post as per usual, and so I travel through the portal. Back then, warp tech was n't invented yet so we used portals. Portals. You've learn those in the classes, right? Anyhow... It was some countryside and it was snowing and it was a trailer without heating system. I walked into the trailer and there she was, the girl who made the heart's call to our kind, the imaginary friends. 
 
 She was wrapped up in this flower knitted blanket on an old yellow bed and was blankly staring at a stain on the inside walls of the trailer. Picturing me. Calling me. All the while trembling and shivering in cold. She was about eleven-years-old, I think. I could see the condensed breaths with each of her brittle breaths. Right behind her was a dead body of her mother. Frozen stiff. And she was waiting for her turn. 
 
 I said hello, and she turned her head toward me. A bony, blue hand poked out from the blanket and she waved at me. I asked what is it she wanted, and without a moment's hesitation she answered she wanted to die. So she called me. Hoping for a helping hand in her suicide. I said I ca n't let her do that, but she insisted so. She told me that her mama was dead, so her papa would come get her. And she wanted none of that. Her papa punched her and kicked her and touched her so her mama took her out from his house, she explained. She'd rather die than go back to her papa, she cried and pleaded. 
 
 So, I did what I had to do. Follow my duties and do what she asked of me. That's the entire purpose of our kind, is it not? I placed my warm, fuzzy, hairy paws on her face, and covered her nose and mouth. A single drop of tear rolled down her frigid cheek and she took it. She was ready for this for a long time. I smothered her until she breathed no more. Of course, it was n't my friendly paws that killed her. She only imagined my hands killing her, because that's how things are with us the imaginary kind. That's how things are... That's how things are nowadays. 
 
 So... Hmm... Yeah. It's something like that, the things we have to face in the line of our work. We're powerless. I wanted and wished her the best but all I could do was help her righteous suicide. We're useless. All we are is a pigment of delusion for a consciousness yet to be matured. We are outdated. Parents no longer want us. Children no longer need us. We're all abandoned. You've all chosen wrong time and wrong place to be a imaginary friend. Thanks, but no thanks. Good luck out there. You wo n't like what you'll see out there.
