The Best Friend Forever

The alarm went off signifying the beginning of another day. The sun had risen a while ago but I only needed to leave the house by ten today.

Fridays!

I loved Fridays, it was one of the few days a week when most people were happy or glad to be alive and thanks to my Empath abilities I felt good too. I’m an Empath I live my life parallel to the emotions around me. It tended to be a drag and was the main reason I didn’t have friends but I didn’t upset me. It was a Friday after all.

I got up and scanned my room. It looked mostly like a war zone to be nice. Most of my books lay scattered across the floor. There was a white plate with chicken bones on the ground and ants had had all but covered it to get to the bones.

I ignored it and stretched my arms before jumping out of my bed. Still stretching my arms, I stood in front of a large full-length mirror in front of my bed. Looking at the mirror I saw a scrawny pale white man, who looked more like a teen than a young adult. Next to him was a full-grown man, his almost pitch black skin contrasting sharply with that of the scrawny kid’s skin.

“Hi Thulani” I said sheepishly waving at the mirror.

“Hey you’re self.” Thulani said leaning on my scrawny reflection. I felt his hands and weight on me causing my knees to buckle nearly sending me to the ground. Thulani stared at me with his eye brow raised before relieving me of the pressure of his wieght.

“Look I’m going to take a shower. I’m so fucking sick and tired of sharing a bed with another man especially you.” Thulani groaned “Just stay here and I’ll be right back. As if I can fucking go anywhere…” Thulani mumbled leaving

I saw his reflection leave and heard the shower turn on. Obediently I sat on my queen size bed facing the mirror making sure he wouldn’t disappear. I didn’t know the rule but I knew that if I left he’d disappear and he’d be pissed when he got back.

I lay back on my bed and spread my arms out basking in the joy that surrounded the city. It was end of the month and most people were getting paid. So there was a good reason for people to smile and if they smiled then I smiled.

We lived by ourselves Thulani and I. Thulani always complained that no women came over but I knew that was just him being him. It wasn’t like I could change that. I couldn’t even get friends let alone a girl friend.

I know Thulani doesn’t really exist. After all I created him. Thulani’s merely a figment of my imagination only visible to me when I use a mirror and he can only touch things when I’m in front of one. It’s the basic rules for him. I don’t ask why because it wouldn’t make sense to, I’m the one who made him no matter how he turned out.

Living in this city and being an Empath was difficult to enough handle. I doupted anyone could imagine what it was like without friends or family. It was driving me crazy. I bottled up all the rage, sadness, angst, malice, greed and jealousy inside me and when the time came instead of the bottle popping.

It grew a face, body arms and an attitude but even with all his issues he was still my friend.

Luckily for me Thulani wasn’t the type of imaginary friend who took over peoples bodies. I was too strong for that, but there had been 4 occasions when I’d let Thulani take over to get out of difficult situations. I often tended to find my self in difficult situations as the cities emotions took over my heart and would lead to out bursts and even violence, which was never good if you were as scrawny as me. My arm had been broken in two places and I’d even been stabbed in the stomach, all before Thulani was born. Luckily the stab didn’t hit any thing important. I liked to look on the bright side and Thulani always called me an idiot because of it.

Now with Thulani around the outbursts had decreased and the fighting was gone too.

The shower stopped running but I could still hear the sound of the dripping showerhead from all the way out here. I watched the bathroom door and listened to the soft patter of feet on the tiles. The door opened and hot steam came out of the door. The steam divided in the center as a floating towel moved towards me. As it got closer I could see floating droplets forming the shape of an extremely masculine man. There was a trail of water footprints leading from the shower to me. The bed sunk next to me and I saw Thulani by looking at his reflection in the mirror. He was drying himself when he saw me looking at him.

“What? Are you going to fantasize about me now?”

I turned away and went to he shower. I could feel the heat from the steam hitting my face as I inhaled the steamy air. I closed the door. The handle felt surprisingly cold to the touch in the suffocating heat.

Drip! Drip! Drip!

The sound of the shower had annoyed me and I decided to close it. I looked around my bathroom. It was big. In fact you could take five steps in any direction without bumping into anything. I stood in front of the medicine cabinet where the sink lay under and Thulani soot behind me grinning from ear to ear.

“Jesus!” I said swallowing down my heart, which had just into my throat while I had clutched to sink.

“Sorry. I was just curious why you turned off the shower when you were going in anyway?”

I could sense Thulani that Thulani was bemused, which wasn’t very different from my father’s feelings when a question like this came up.

I flashed back to the time when I had asked him a similar question, the stress and anger that oozed out of his ever pore had made me burst into tears but that hadn’t been the 1st time I’d burst into tears after looking at someone. My dad was about to answer but stopped as my tears filled him with pity for a second before his anger returned and he stormed out of the bath.

“Just because I want to so, please just leave me alone.”

I opened the cabinet and Thulani disappeared. Inside, the cabinet was full of bottles of pills mostly antidepressants, coke, and crystal-meth from before I met Thulani. The steam from Thulani’s previous shower was still making the air heavy. I turned on the cold water tap on the sink and put the pressure on maximum as I took off my shirt and briefs. My body shivered involuntarily as drops of cold water ricochied off the sunk and onto my exposed pale skin. I turned the tap off when I felt the air become light again.

I enjoyed the time I took in the shower. To me it was the only time when my own emotions were fully in charge of the way I acted. I hated being a puppet, being pulled by tens of thousands of miniature strings each being held by a different member of the city. The showerhead let a burst of water out and I held onto the taps, controlling the temperature making sure it was cold but not freezing. I liked the water to be cool, to me it was what happiness would feel like if it was solid. Thulani was always hot to the touch.

I stood and cleansed myself of all the hate of yesterday leaving whatever love and joy I had picked up long the way even if it was never aimed at me. After an hour and a half I stood before the mirror fully dressed. Thulani dropped his hands around my shoulders.

“Finally! You’re done so lets get ready.” He said

“Ready for what? ” I asked knowing, full well, what the answer was. I flinched under the sudden pressure Thulani had put on my shoulders.

“Don’t do this. You know exactly what. After all it was you who said they wanted to help people” Thulani said in a disappointed voice.

“I know, but not by hurting someone!” I exclaimed defensively.

“You felt the surge of hate inside of her. She’s evil and she has to be with all the negative energy inside of her and here’s you’re chance. Make the world a better place!” Thulani said encouragingly.

I looked at Thulani’s reflection in the eye before looking away. I had liked her. She was beautiful, smart and quiet, like me. Just like me. Me before I met Thulani I was pushed by the hate, anger and sadness, which covered the city like a fog. I was always surrounded by those feelings.

“Is she… like me?” I asked Thulani.

The pressure of Thulani’s grip lessened and he looked like he was lost in thought.

“Yes, she is but unlike you, who can control you’re power. She’s controlled by her power making her a bitter vessel held down by the burden of life.”

I knew how that felt, it was the only thing I felt. My breath was heavy as I imagined my life without Thulani helping me block out those surges. I wouldn’t have been alive. It was something I would never wish on my worst enemy.

“Okay. What do we do?”

Thulani grinned darkly as he rubbed my shoulders and told me his plan.