Life according to my father

My father said this to me in an email a few days back. We were talking about sleeping patterns at the time, but what he said is applicable at any moment.

“Life is just a learning process, yes?”

The vocal chords that walk down the street every night

The last few nights I’ve been hearing voices go past my window.

The first time I heard the voices I panicked, and nearly called someone on my cellphone to keep from completely losing my nerve.

And now? I mostly freeze for a second, wait for the voices to pass, and then continue with my regular routine.

Who are they? Late night sojourners? A group of friends who take walks that stretch across town and go deep into the early morning? Something I make up in my head?

I don’t know. Usually by the time I can work up the nerve to press my ear against the glass of my window they are already gone.

They walk out on the road, so I’m not too worried or anything… They just stir the coals of my already active imagination. I wish to either find out who they are and why they pass here at the same time every night, or write a story and create who they are and why they are here.

It’d make a better story than the one I made up on the spot in the restaurant today about mutant platypuses vaporizing and returning to the mothership once I have shot them with my invisible laser gun.

There are moments where I feel like such a child because of the stories I create, the silly things I think about. I mean, really? What girl my age comes up with things like me? Though at the same time… I’d have it no other way. The platypuses need someone to see them and the dragon in the hallway needs someone to breathe fire at once and a while. Otherwise, I half-think that the platypuses and the dragon might actually die somewhere in the back of our heads. They will leave their bones in the archives of the child-like imagination that we seem to abandon somewhere in our skulls more and more with each passing day.