Imaginary Tale

The insistent knocking at 3:40am rammed through John's aching skull.
He groaned, forced himself upright and shuffled across the room to the
door. The uniformed policeman looked solemnly at him. "Mr John Loomis
?" John nodded. "May I come in please ?"

"Uh... what's wrong ?" John waved him inside, scratching idly.

"Do you know a Miss," the policeman consulted his tiny notepad, "Lisa
Trent ?"

"Eh ?" John was suddenly very awake.

"Miss Lisa Trent, sir. Do you know her ?"

"She's..." John tried to find the words, "She's not real."

"Oh, she's very real, Mr Loomis. She was found murdered earlier this
evening."

John's legs turned mushy and he dropped into the chair. "Murdered
?"

"She was your... girlfriend, wasn't she, sir ?" He checked his notes
again. "We found some items referring to you on her person." He pulled
out a small, crumpled photo and handed it to John. "This is you, I take
it ?"

John studied the scrap of glossy paper, saw his face gurning inanely
back at him. He turned it over and read the writing... his writing...
on the back. "To Lisa, all my love, John."

"Yes." He remembered he'd been asked the question. He slowly passed the
photo back.

"She also had your address in her filofax."
John shook his head in denial. "Okay, this is all a set-up, right ?" He
grinned. "Who is it ? The guys from work ?"

The officer's features remained solemn. "It's no joke, sir, it's very
real. And we'll need you to identify the body."

"What ? Look, you don't understand ! I told you ! Lisa Trent doesn't
exist !"

In the January of 1998, John met Lisa Trent and, from that moment, a
bliss that had been missing for some eighteen months, returned to his
life. That was the story that John had told his workmates and boozing
buddies anyway. None of them had actually met Lisa.
The problem was that not even John had met Lisa, apart from within his
own, highly-warped little mind.

He came up with so much detail for her, for his life with her, that she
seemed so very real, with lots of real emotions. And real
weaknesses...

John found himself standing before a blank video monitor, the policeman
at his side. How could he possibly identify someone he'd never seen
?

The screen was switched on and they were staring at the bleak,
monochrome image of a figure beneath a white sheet. A pair of
latex-covered hands smoothly drew back the crisp hem and John saw, for
the first time, Lisa Trent.

She was precisely as he had described her: long, chestnut-brown hair,
heart-shaped face, small, full lips and although he couldn't see them,
he guessed she had dark-brown eyes beneath the thick, vertiginous
eyebrows. "Is that Miss Lisa Trent ?"

What else could he say ? "Yes." The words emerged quietly. "Yes, it
is."

They questioned him at length about where he had been that evening and
who he had been with. They took names and phone numbers to check his
story and then they asked him about his relationship with Lisa and how
well he knew her friends and did he know of anyone would wish to kill
her.

The first part, regarding his whereabouts, was easy; he had been down
the pub all night with his mates. When they enquired about Lisa,
however, about her life, about their life, the old story he had
established about her began to manifest itself exactly as it always had
with anyone else who asked. And the police were convinced.

But as to who would want his imaginary girlfriend dead, what could he
say ?

They released him at eight o'clock the following morning, promising to
keep him informed and updated of any developments and he ended up
sitting alone in his flat, wondering just what the hell was going on in
his life. Maybe he was dreaming it all; he gave himself a nasty bite on
his finger and drew blood. Okay, so it wasn't a dream.

Right, so somehow his pretend girlfriend of four months had somehow
incarnated herself (complete with accessories relating to himself) in
every detail and had gotten herself murdered. He knew he had envisaged
her, had described so vividly, she had almost been alive, but as to
how, he hadn't a clue.

The phone rang, startling him out of his quiet thoughts. "Hello
?"

"Well, that's a nice way to greet me after all this time," The voice
was cool, very feminine.

"Sorry ? Who is this ?"

"Don't you remember, Johnny-Boy ?" The woman chuckled. "I never thought
you'd forget me." He was about to speak again. "But, then again, I bet
you forgot all about me whilst you were going out with... what was her
name ? Lisa ?"

"Who is this ?"

"We made a good couple, once upon a time." There was a languorous sigh.
"And I bet you and Lisa did too." There was a muffled giggle. "Well,
you did before last night, anyway."

"Oh, God..." Realisation began to hammer at him.

"Don't you think I did well ? To kill an imaginary woman ?" The giggle
came again. "But I guess it takes one to know just how to do it."

"Jennifer ?"

"Oh, you do remember ! Thank you !"

In 1996, before John didn't meet Lisa Trent, he didn't meet Jennifer
Price and spent seven sweet months with her. The end was less than
sweet though when he dumped her. Or so he told his friends.

"But how ?" The receiver creaked in his tight grip. "Why ?"

"Why, is obvious. How ? Well, it doesn't matter how, only that your
pretend-girlfriend is on a coroner's slab. Just remember, Johnny, when
you're not real, you can do anything, and go anywhere. And if I can
kill an imaginary person, just think what I can do with a real
one."

"Jennifer..."

"I'll be seeing you." The line went abruptly dead.

John sat staring at the door.

And he began to wait...