The Imaginary Friend Factory

Boy, I was young when I created this!

A factory where you can send your imaginary friends who are not suited to you anymore.

I never really had imaginary friends before that day, but when my younger brother (I don’t really remember which one it was) asked me if I had one, I couldn’t tell him I never had any. So I told him I had two. I sort of created imaginary friends to answer him in a positive way. Their names were Ping and Pong. One was red, the other was blue. One had the shape of a soft straight stick with a mouth and eyes, the other had the appearance of a ball. I don’t remember which name was paired with which color and which shape, but I do believe Ping was the stick and Pong was a ball. Either way, I never really gave them a gender and they always stick together so I never treated them separately. After describing my imaginary imaginary friends to my brother, I told him they came straight from the factory.

“The factory?”

He asked.

“Yes, the factory! It’s where we get our imaginary friends from. We can also send them back if they don’t suit us and we can get a new one in exchange. It’s equipped with the best of thechnologie to give you the perfect imaginary friend meant just for you.”

While saying that, I was imagining that factory, how it would seem and how to send imaginary friends there. I had this mental picture of it all and I even imagined the process of changing the friends' features. I realise now that it was somewhat of a barbaric process. They would put the friend in a machine where they would change its appearance and personality in a way that would please the client’s tastes in friends. And I called the process ‘recycling you friend’. It made literally no sense, but it was fun and it created a new game for me and my brother. I would tell him what my old imaginary friends were and he would tell me what new friends he got from the factory.

“Don’t you want to change Ping and Pong?”

He asked me.

“I would have, but they are always running away when I want to send them there.They’re jumping around and evading me. But it’s perfect that way. I wouldn’t want friends that let themselves be replaced by new ones. Nor would I want friends who change themselves for me. They are the perfect ones for me.”

Honesty and loyalty were always the qualities I prefered in others. I somewhat realise now that it was sort of a sadistic game. In my mind as a child, there was nothing wrong with that. I thought the other children were perceiving those imaginary friends as toys or books. We could change them if we didn’t like them. However, imaginary friends weren't really a toy in my mind. They were being with feelings. Poor them. Always afraid to be sent to the factory. Hiding their true personality so I wouldn’t want to send them back. Without knowing it was exactly what I didn’t like them to do. I might have been a sadistic child. Though, Ping and Pong were my first true imaginary friends. So, sending the friends I never had to the factory to get Ping and Pong wouldn’t be that cruel. Except if they were taken from the materials of unwanted imaginary friends of someone else… From someone who has grown not to want an imaginary friend.

Ping and Pong have now disappeared. I still see them in my memories, but they never do anything new, just like in a picture frozen in time. Maybe they were used as materials for someone else’s imaginary friend. I wouldn’t know. I’m somewhat nostalgic about it. I didn’t realise I still had attachment to them. To characters I created to appear normal. What a weird child I was. Or maybe I was a child way too normal in the weird environment I grew up in.

Lately, I asked both my younger brothers about the imaginary friends they had. One told me he had one named ‘Ketchup’ which was exactly what it sounded like. Pretty much something we could invent on the spot. I don’t know how he was playing with it… The other told me he had one with a spring body and a yellow smiley ball as head. Both of their answers made me vaguely remember details about that distant memory. I don’t know for sure which one it was who asked me the question that led me to create an imaginary friend factory, but I will remember it for a very long time.

I wonder now if my brother, whichever one it was, asked me if I had an imaginary friend to see if it was normal not to have one. Then my answer would have forced him to create an imaginary friend as well. We both would have thought at that time that it was not normal not to have one and we both would have created one to appear normal in the eye of the other. Either way, we will never know now, since both of them don’t remember the imaginary friend factory. I think both of our personalities would have been way different now if both of us assumed our truth back then or if he had asked me that question when I was a little older at an age I would have thought it was normal not to create friends in our imagination. I would probably be less creative. As for him, I’m not sure what would have changed in him. In any case, this event did happen at that precise time and it was part of the reason we are who we are now. It’s something only I know and remember, but something I don’t necessarily want to forget. It could clearly make great stories. ‘The IFF in The Friendpossible Mission’ or something along those lines. In any case, it was fun back then, and it’s still fun today to think about this imaginary factory.