They Aren't Imaginary, They're My Friends

There's a young man in the coffee shop, sitting across the room from me, his eyes trained on his screen as his fingers whir across his keyboard at a feverish pace. I'm casually watching him while I wait for my muse to arrive, when I see him straighten his back, inch his fingers slightly away from the keys, and smile in triumph. He looks around the room then, blinks a couple of times, then takes a drink of coffee as he settles back into reality. He stretches and looks up again, and this time our eyes meet. I smile at him and nod, acknowledging his cleverness and encouraging him to leap back into the world at his fingertips. He sees my open laptop, and for a few seconds we share a camaraderie, before he turns back to his screen and I begin the painstaking battle to enter my own world.

Once I'm there, there's quite a lot to do. I do a quick scan of the news to remind myself of current events, and am shocked to discover that so much has transpired since the last time I was here. The villain has become more villainy, the hero has become more heroic, and the imminent battle between the two has grown even closer than when I entered their world yesterday. I hone in on my hero and listen to the last words that fell from their lips, then my fingers fly across the keyboard as I watch what happens next.

It is a beautiful thing, this movie in my head. I watch the interactions, the movements, and the changes that befall these people, and I'm lucky enough to be there to write them all down. Sure, some of the things I write down will be removed later, as they prove unimportant to the overall story I am seeing, but some of these little actions that I don't yet understand will be crucial to understanding how it all played out.   

Having spent the majority of my life as a writer, I understand how the boy from the coffee shop feels when he looks up from being clever, only to realize that no one around him was there to appreciate it. Writers pour their hearts, emotions, and time into the world in their head, only to have their loved ones pat them on the back or shrug away without understanding the devastating effects their lack of emotion can cause. I've seen the concerned looks, the whispers between loved ones, and even the look of fear in someone's eyes when they realize your feet aren't firmly planted in the same world theirs are in. My sister has (lovingly) asked, "What do the voices tell you to do?" Little does she know, I'm not listening to the voices, I'm watching their vessels live full and adventurous lives, all from the privacy of my own keyboard.

So the next time you see that person in the coffee shop look up from frantically typing, give them a smile and a nod, and let them know it is okay to spend some time in a world that isn't the same one you're in. After all, the characters they so lovingly craft aren't imaginary people, they're friends.