Flash Fiction – Imaginary Friends

“Who the hell are you?” I asked, warily. “What are you?” Standing before me was a girl with bright pink hair, eighties clothes and rebellious makeup.

“I’m your imaginary friend.”

Another one? “I don’t have an imaginary friend.”

“Of course you don’t, you’re not a child anymore, but you did. Me. Now I’m real.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes, that’s how you made me.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t have an imaginary friend.”

“Don’t you remember me?”

“There is nothing to remember. I never had any made up friends. Also, is there some kind of convention because you’re the third person to claim to be my imaginary friend this week?”

“What?” She yelled. “Are you telling me you had more than one pretend friend?”

“Not once did I have an imaginary friend. I guess you all have the wrong Conner.”

Exasperated the pink haired girl disappeared, as the others had. I felt a little guilty about that one. She had been my favorite and I hated to see the hurt look on her face.

I rubbed the stupid lamp and my tricky genie appeared at my side.

“You really weren’t very popular as a kid were you?”

“Shut up jerkface. This isn’t what I meant when I asked to be visited by long-lost friends.”

“I told you to be careful what you wish for.”

“I thought I was being cautious, I didn’t think you could screw this one up. What happens when I reject them?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” he said with a shrug. “So what is your last wish?”

“I wish for you to be my imaginary friend from childhood.” The genie gave me a venomous look and vanished. I turned at a sound and standing in front of me was a girl with bright pink hair…

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The prompt was: You’re imaginary friend from childhood is real and has come over to chill. What is your friend like? What do you do with your (now real) imaginary friend? (My goal was to stay under 300 words, which I did, yay!)

I never had an imaginary friend but if I had, I would have made him/her cool and rebellious and completely unreliable. When I was young I had trouble with consistency so I probably would have had more than one and changed my mind about my favorite often.

That’s what I do with music and movies, which is what I was into, instead of making up people to talk to. I did, however, make up people for stories, so maybe it’s somewhat accurate to say I had a lot of imaginary friends.

This prompt was more geared toward younger writers but I decided to use it anyway.