Do you see what I see?

A strange man stood in the center of my house. I didn’t see him come through the door, and my mother hadn’t introduced him so understandably I was scared. The first thing that came in my mind that he was the boogeyman. With his dark clothes, and his unkept appearance it was more than likely. One finger pointed at the stranger as I shook with fear. “Mom? Who is that man? How did he get in the house?” My mother, who was calmly sitting on her favorite chair cross-stitching looked over in the direction that I was pointing. “What man? Is this your first pretend friend?” Pretend friend? How could she not see him? He was there as clear as day. I was feeling quite fustrerated with my mother. How could she just sit there with her stitching so calmly when there was a strange man standing there. Who knew what he wanted to do. I rolled my eyes. “Mom, you know I am too mature for that. How can you not see him? I’m not sure how he got in, but please if you don’t know this guy get him out of the house! He’s freaking me out.”

My mother chuckled as if she heard some joke that I hadn’t. “There’s nobody there honey.” It looked like I had to take measures into my own hands. I wasn’t sure how she couldn’t see him, and I was scared out of my mind but I had to do something. I stepped over in front of the man, then turned to my mother who was being very unhelpful at the moment. “Well if you’re going to do nothing mom, I guess I have to take matters into my own hands.” I faced him, with a serious look on my face. “I don’t know who you are, or how you got here but your going to have to leave!” He stared blankly at me, obviously not threatened. “You must be a bad little girl.” What? I tell him to go and he comments on something like that? What a strange man this was. It seemed that it was going to take more force to get him to leave. I walk over nearby him, pushing out my hands to shove him but he quickly moves to get out of the way. What a quick mover he was! How was he able to move so fast I wondered? He stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry. “Not only are you bad, but you are slow too. I bet nobody likes you.” Now this guy was starting to make me feel bad. Tears ran down my cheeks. I could hardly contain my emotions. I was only four years old for goodness sake! Of course taunting like that was going to effect me.

“Mom! This guy is saying bad things about me! Don’t say you can’t hear him either!” My mother looked up from her work with a worried look on her face. “Hon, as I said there’s nobody there. What kind of game are you playing? ” Game, she thought I was playing a game? I was getting mad at her. How could she not see him or hear him? It wasn’t like he was hiding or being really quiet. He was right there in the middle of the room, his voice loud enough to be heard by her. Maybe she was the one playing a game. This man and herself must be in on it together to make me feel bad. “Stop messing with me mom! What did I do for you and this guy to gang up on me? I don’t like what he’s saying!” My mother took a deep breath, it seemed she got the idea that I was being serious. She looked in the direction that I pointed and began to yell at him. Finally! It seemed that she was stopping pretending not to see him. “Look, stop bothering my daughter!” Then, something odd happened. I didn’t see him there anymore. Where had he gone? I started looking around the room feeling confused. Nobody could move that fast! Something weird was going on! I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all. “Well...he’s gone mom. I don’t know where he went.”

My mother took a deep sigh, frowning as if she was unhappy with me. “There was nobody there in the first place dear. Now why won’t you go and play outside? Maybe one of your little friends will be around so you don’t have to pretend about men saying bad things about you.” I looked at her in shock. How could she say such things to me? Even if she couldn’t see the man couldn’t she see that he was something that I saw? Sometimes she was so mean! But I didn’t voice my thoughts. She would just argue with me about it and after all that I didn’t feel like doing that. So I just shrug and wander out the door. That was eighteen years ago. Since then I have learned what I was seeing is known as a hallucination. I have been seeing them since I was four. I have bipolar disorder, and my name is Christy. But I found out there was more to seeing these things than I thought...

You would think seeing people who say bad things about me would make me have a bad self esteem. I have grown to learn that they aren’t real, and the things they say don’t mean anything. I have even made a few friends. Even though I take medication, I still see the visions every so often. I just ignore them most of the time. But sometimes what they say really gets to me. One day I was standing with my friend Susan, and we were chatting and one of them pops up and starts going off. I just continue talking to her, without acknowledging him. I didn’t want her to think I was crazy after all. But then something weird happens.

She replied to a comment he made. “I am so her friend!” It seemed like a comment out of the blue, since how could she be replying to a person that only I can see and hear? “Er, who are you talking to Susan?” “That guy over there, the one making all the negative comments. I’m surprised you haven’t said anything to him. Don’t you believe in sticking up for yourself?” “Uh...that guy. He is just a figment of my imagination. How can you see him?” Susan just stared at the guy, then stared at me like she didn’t believe what I was saying. “He’s real. If he wasn’t...how could I see him?” Someone was starting to pass by, and walked right through the man. “If he’s real, how could something like that happen? This makes no sense. How can you see my hallucination? This reminds me when I just started seeing them.” I felt so scared and confused, I could only imagine what Susan was feeling. “Maybe...for some reason only we two can see him?” She looked over at him and posed a question. “Who are you, and why are you saying such bad things to my friend? And how is it that someone just walked through you like you weren’t there? Do you have some sort of power or something?” The man did not answer her question, but continued on his endless tirade of comments to me. I blinked, and decided maybe that he only noticed me for some reason. “Excuse me, but who are you and why are you saying such things to me?” He stared at me, like he didn’t expect for me to say anything to him. “You spoke to me! You haven’t said a word to me since you were four years old! I’m sorry, I can’t help the things I say. Everyone I know says things like that. I was surprised when so long ago you didn’t respond to me in kind.Idiot!” “You are the guy I first saw! Well I didn’t say anything since I didn’t think you were real. But having Susan see you changes everything. You must be real. You say that everyone you know says negative things about each other? They don’t seem like very nice people.” “Yes, I am. So your friend can see me? I wondered why your mother could not. We aren’t bad people. Just we can’t help the things we say. They just come out. Erk...they are coming. I got to get going. Bye you two weirdos!” Just like that, he was gone.

I stared into the blank space where he was trying to digest what just happened. “I wonder who they are. Are these invisible people in trouble? And why can we only see them? Maybe we are the only people who can help them?” “That’s always possible...but what can we do to help them if they are in trouble? If people can just pass through them we can’t really do any damage to them.” “Somehow we have to figure out how to be solid to them.” I frowned and tried to think of how that could be possible. Nothing really came to mind though. “Well let’s go home and think about it. I’m sure some sort of idea will come up!” Susan nodded and we parted ways. Once home, I sat and thought for a long time. I stewed and I pondered. I thought and I wondered. After many hours I was beginning to feel burned out. So I decided to do something else for a while. No reason to kill off all my brain cells thinking. It would get me nowhere after all. As I was busy, the phone rang surprising me. I picked it up and answered it. “Hello this is Susan, I just thought of something. In order to be solid to an invisible thing, you have to be invisible too.” “How are we going to become invisible? If you didn’t notice, magicians aren’t real.” “Well I heard of a scientist that was trying to invent something to make soldiers invisible.”

“And he is going to believe there are invisible people because...” Susan sounded like she hadn’t thought of that. “Well what is the worst thing that could happen if we talk to him?” “Well we could get locked up for one thing!” “Oh yeah, right. Well we could steal what he is inventing maybe?” “What if we get caught? We don’t even know that he is done with his invention yet anyways.” I was feeling little patience for my friend at the moment. “Well we could get to know him. Once we have the idea he will believe our story we can tell him why we want his invention.” I thought about it. There wasn’t a lot of options. I wasn’t even sure if Susan’s idea would work, but it was the only idea we had at the moment. I wasn’t sure if I should wait until we had a more solid idea or just go with what we had. “Well it might not be a bad idea to have a scientist as a friend.” “Wonderful! Let’s go visit him tomorrow. We have to think of a reason that we will give for our visit anyways.” More things to think about! It seemed that this was becoming complicated. I said goodbye and hung up the phone doodling in a journal I often wrote in. I began writing about the adventure with my hallucinations and all the scenarios that could be true. I looked over them and sighed wondering what I was getting myself into. This could be dangerous, but there must be some reason I was seeing what I was seeing. All these years I thought I was crazy. Now it seemed more was to this.

The day passed slowly as I anticipated the future. But, as all days it did pass. As morning came, a knocking on my door also occurred. I looked at the clock. It was six! What was Susan doing here so early? She must of been so excited by the visit that she couldn’t sleep any longer. But that was no reason to wake me up! I got dressed and went to open the door seeing my friend standing there with an eager look on her face. “Mmm, thanks for getting me up so early....I hope you thought of a reason for us to visit this guy. We might want to wait a bit. He probably isn’t going to be happy at us arriving at his lab so early. We can have breakfast.” I couldn’t keep the crankiness out of my voice. “Ah sorry to wake you up! I just wanted to get an early start! I did think of a reason for us to be there. We can say we are students that are interested in inventing. That should get him warmed up to us. So...what’s for breakfast? I’m starved!” I grumbled, wondering how sorry she really was. Certainly she must of thought that I would be unhappy that she woke me up so early. She knew I was not a morning person. I headed over to the kitchen, muttering to myself as I looked over at what I had. “How about pancakes and a big cup of coffee? That ought to wake us up!” I began to take out the pancake batter and added water to it without any answer from her. If she didn’t want it, I did.

“Pancakes? Perfect...you know I love them!” she sat down at the table, and picked up the paper flipping to the comics section. “As for the coffee, I can go without. I don’t much like the stuff. Too bitter for me.” “You don’t like coffee? Never knew that about you. How do you get up so early without it?” Susan just shrugged , too busy with reading the paper to properly answer my question. I flipped the pancakes, really not too concerned about it. She must be the type of person who could wake up early without any stimulation. I was rather jealous. It sometimes took a freight truck to wake me up in the morning. “Blah, that’s right be rude and ignore me when you got me up so early. I have half a mind to go back to bed. But...the coffee smells so good.” I took a long whiff of the percolating coffee. It took me a few cups in order to wake up all the way. “Humm? Sorry. Just getting into what’s going on in the world. Want to seem smart for our future scientist friend after all.” I snorted. “What’s the point? If we are supposed to be students, we should seem like we want to learn things. Already knowing information seems like it is a waste of time.” Maybe I just said that because I was in a bad mood, it actually seemed logical for people who were interested in science to be smart. “Your such a grumpy Gus Christy. Make me feel bad about reading the paper will you? You never know if something in there might make us closer to him. Being uneducated will not help us at all!” She sniffed, trying to act upset but I knew she was really not. I seen her really upset before, and that is not how she acted. I slid the pancakes onto her plate and mine then pouring my first cup of coffee. “It’s not the paper reading that’s bothering me. It’s you giving me the silent treatment.“I sat down and poured syrup over the heaping mounds of pancakes sitting in front of me, then dug my fork in taking a bite. Ah, I had to say my cooking was divine! “Sorry, I tend to be quiet when I read. If it makes you feel better I will stop and pay attention to you.” I nodded.“Yeah that would be nice. I mean if your going to wake me up the least you can do is talk to me!”

Throughout breakfast, we chatted away until it was more of a decent hour to go visit the lab. Heading out into the car, I drove us there so many thoughts running in my head. Would he be the sort of person we could trust with this information? Could he actually help us? Was this a dead end? I couldn’t help but worry. Never before in my life had I had something so important to do. This could be the difference between life and death for those people. Facing the lab was a nightmare, it was so pure white, cold and unpersonal. It felt like I was about to enter the lab of Dr. Frankenstein. Hopefully he didn’t do things like reanimate dead tissue in there! Sweating, I had to remind myself that he was just a regular inventor and not a mad scientist. I knocked lightly at the door, grabbing the hand of Susan for support. The door swung open, flooding my eyes with the harsh whiteness of the room. There, standing tall was a man who scared me at first. Then, as my eyes adjusted he didn’t seem so threatening. Just a man with slicked back blond hair, and glasses that seemed too big for his face. “Hello? How may I help you two ladies?” His voice seemed very nasal. I felt silly for ever being scared. How could anyone be frightened of such a meek person such as him. I opened my mouth, and found I was having trouble saying the lies that we had came up with. I wasn’t a very good liar, I was sure he would be able to tell that what I said was not the truth. Susan saved the day however, after minutes passing in silence. “We are students, interested in inventing. Could you show us a few things you came up with? ”

“Oh of course, you must of heard of me I’m guessing? It’s nice to see woman interested in science. Not very many female scientists around. Come, follow me and I will show you my latest projects.” He swept his arm to show us in, leading us to various gadgets lying around and explaining to us what they are supposed to do. But oddly enough he didn’t show us the thing we were looking for. I was beginning to worry that he was the wrong guy. Susan feigned interest in everything he showed us, but I was just distracted. I was going to have to say something since Susan wasn’t. “Er Mr. Bowman? I heard you had something that is supposed to make soldiers invisible. Can you show us that?” A surprised look went over his face. “How...how did you know about that? It is just a pipe dream of mine. I am not even close to beginning that project. I would be ashamed to show students something that is a failure.” Then his glasses slid down his nose and a sad look grew in his deep dark eyes. I wasn’t sure what to do. He looked like he was about to cry at any moment. I wasn’t good with people who were in an emotional state, especially people I didn’t know very well. I placed a hand on his shoulder, and looked at Susan. She was better at that kind of thing. That’s why we were such good friends. She helped me when I was down. Susan’s voice was soft and soothing. “Maybe it would help to have a sounding board for your ideas. I notice you don’t have anyone around to help you out, why is that? Every great scientist has lab partners to do the things he cannot do. Though we are just students, perhaps we can be the people you are missing?”