I Hear Fictional People

I have this little problem.  Sometimes I feel like Cole Sear.  He heard dead people.  I don't.  I hear worse.  Let me tell you about it

I don't know if I should tell him.  I almost told him last time.  I'm not a normal boy.  I hear fictional people.  They talk to me, want me to do things. They don't know they're fictional.

This is my dilemma.  I've been this way a long time.  I try to be brave because it can be scary sometimes.

But sometimes I like it.

Should I tell him?  The doctor already thinks I'm crazy.  He just wants me to pay him to tell me so.  Must have something to do with all those diplomas, certificates and degrees in pretty, wooden frames hanging on his wall.  I suppose he feels entitled.

I bet he doesn't hear them.  He listens to real people.  Real people like me.  People who hear fictional people.

Sometimes I write down what they say.  They don't care.  I think they like it.  It makes them feel interesting.  Like people want to know what they have to say.  People who can't hear them for themselves.  People who have to hear it from people like me.

The doctor says he can make them go away.  Give me pills to make them stop.  I don't know why he says that.  He doesn't believe they're even there.  I like the fictional people.  They like to talk to me.  And I like to listen to what they say.

But sometimes they scare me.  They want me to write down the bad things they do, the mean thoughts they think and the bad words they say.  I don't know why they want real people to know.  But real people do want to know.  Sometimes real people scare me too.

But I like it when they make me laugh.  They do that sometimes.  They're funny when they want to be.  And I like to write those things down.

Yes, I hear fictional people.  Can't you hear them too?

(This is what happens when the muse wakes me up in the middle of the night and won't let me go back to sleep.  Spooky, huh?)