This story was formerly published on the Abrazine website (http://www.abrazine.com/), and received an Honorable Mention in the 2014 To Hull & Back Short Story Competition (https://www.christopherfielden.com/short-story-competition/results-2014.php)

***

What happens to the creative fervor of youth?  Does it immediately die when one hits double-digit age, or does it last until the oft-admired, nearly magical age of 18?  Perhaps the part(s) - I am no brain expert, and am unsure if it is housed in a multitude of spaces, or merely one - in which youthful imagination reside are cannibalized by the growing amounts of reason, responsibility, and all-around boringness that continue to infect and further permeate our minds each passing day.

My name is Alice.  I am 29 years old, work in a cubicle as a data entry specialist, and have terribly monotonous days.  These are the life-altering, world-changing questions I pose to myself each day.  I have a fairly large cubicle, though it is oddly skinny and long in comparison to my comrades in the typing arts.  Fortunately, we have high dividers so we are not forced to awkwardly pretend we are not curiously staring at each other all day.  This allows us all the convenience to freely pick our noses or make stink faces at a neighbor who has committed a grave offense, such as not making a new pot of coffee after drinking the last cup, doing a #2 in the shared bathroom without the combo of courtesy flush and a spray of air freshener, to name a couple.  Some days I am so bored that, if I were to become a tad more bored, I’m pretty sure I would fall over dead.  Death by boredom, it happens all the time.

There was a time when my days were not so trivial.  When I was a child, I was a princess of a faraway land, battled pirates, had a pet unicorn, was a particularly adept rock star, had an invisible - not imaginary thank-you-very-much - friend named Tulip (we often got into fights, she had a sassy mouth on her), I was anything and everything my limitless imagination could conjure up…I was truly free.  I built forts of architectural magnificence from couch cushions and sheets.  I easily transformed sticks into swords that would bring Excalibur to shame any day of the week.  There were no time cards, no drab business casual rags, no painfully obvious safety meetings, no grown-up mask I had to wear each day (this is by far the most painful), none of that malarkey.  I was honestly, totally, completely…myself.

Where had I gone wrong?  After asking myself this during many identical days of mindlessly typing, I realized I had lost my imagination.  Gone were my days as warrior princess with unicorn and sassy Tulip in tow. Worries of bills, boyfriends who were very un-prince-like (they were actually more akin to goblins and cave trolls), and office politics had taken their place.   This was a travesty of grave proportion!  I made the decision this would end immediately.   The problem was, my imagination had been out of commission for so long, I wasn’t able to return to my royal glory.  My crown had rusted into dust.  The pirates quit their day jobs, decided to get haircuts and work in Finance.  My pet unicorn had run off.  My pink electric guitar no longer played sweet tunes.  Sassy Tulip wasn’t around to give me any of her quips; she apparently found a new friend to backtalk.  My cushion and sheet forts only looked like a big mess.  Excalibur could easily cut my found stick-swords in two.  I wasn’t sure of I was just rusty, or if the imagination portion(s) (again, no brain expert here) of my brain had died.  Unfortunately, this summation made me yearn for my childhood adventures even more than before.

***

It was a very ordinary day.  I woke up, showered, dressed, ate breakfast, and came into work.  I was wearing my usual snappy business casual attire.  I said hello to Penelope, the front desk receptionist, and random people on the elevator.  After exiting the elevator on the sixth floor, I made my way to my cubicle.  “Good morning.  Due to server issues, the network is down.  The IT team is currently working on this.  I will provide an update as soon as possible.  Thank you and have a great day” Penelope nervously stated over the intercom.   With the network being down, I could not do any of my earth-shatteringly important tasks.   I sat calmly at my desk, swinging slightly from side-to-side in my swivel chair, my favorite item in my cubicle.  There were some perks to adult life.

I stared up at the ceiling of white squares, each having a collection of black speckles.  I then focused my attention to the rectangular light cover, protecting two long bulbs.   The cover itself had an unusual texture; I was surprised I never noticed it before.  It looked as if it was blanketed with clear pebbles, or a corn on the cob, or, or…scales!  The texture was like clear scales, scales on a medium-sized, slim fish.  All of a sudden, I could see my fish form from the “scales.”  It looked right at me, then focused ahead and started swimming along.  As I was mesmerized by my creation, ocean waves began to form above my fish, with coral and other ocean-inhabiting creatures making their debut below.  I was witnessing the creation of a whole new world on this simple light cover. 

Excited by my progress, I then turned my attention to my cubicle.  The dividers were tan, and covered in a course felt-like material.  I grazed my hand over my left wall and suddenly, a camel’s face appeared and smiled back at me.  He was a smaller camel, his face the size of my hand; I knew he was a “he” by the handsome bow tie he was wearing.  He then took full form and stood on his hind legs, smiling all the while.  He walked over to the end of my cubicle, and three more of his buddies walked in line behind him.  The first wore a top hat, complete with monocle and cane; he was a very elegant fellow.  The second had a cowboy hat, a red neckerchief, and gun belt with pistol holsters filled with a banana on each side.  The final camel had a bleached blonde mullet and wore a flannel shirt with the arms torn off…there’s a black sheep in every family.  The unusual troop then faced forward with deliberate precision.  This worried me for a moment, as this was not the opportune time for a camel rebellion.  They then smiled in unison, and began dancing the Charleston as I had never seen before.  What control!  What artistry! 

I looked forward at my computer staring at the black screen.   I blinked and was startled to see the inky screen disappear and a large wooden ship wheel in its place.  My odd, long cubicle then turned into a conquered pirate ship; the camels were my ship hands (the one camel still had a mullet, some trends never die), tying up the renegade pirates whom we had just defeated.  My light cover fish jumped out of the ocean below, smiled at me, and returned to the watery depths.  I captained the ship confidently, with my large, diamond-encrusted crown sparkling in the sun and the Sword of Perfection hanging from my belt.  Uni the Unicorn then pranced up to me, carrying my beautiful pink guitar gingerly in her mouth.  As I was about to thank her, Invisible Tulip grabbed the guitar and retreated to the bowels of the ship.  “Nanna nanna boo boo!” she yelled in defiance.  Oh that Tulip, can’t live with her, can’t kill her.  Literally, you can’t kill her, she’s invisible.   It’s impossible to find her.

“Alice?  Alice!  Are you listening to me?!?!”  That broke me out of my fantasy land.  It was my boss, Candy, who had the appropriate name for a very different profession.   “The network has been back up for 30 minutes now, get to work!” Candy exclaimed.  She was a large woman, with severely streaked long blonde hair, overly tan skin, and a permanently grumpy attitude.  Her face, wrinkled and angry, began to turn gray.  Her green eyes morphed to blood red, and her hair became tangled and more voluminous.  Large, oily, black bats wings sprung from behind her.  Her transformation was complete, her true form exposed: she was Candisa, Queen of the Harpies.   “I’ll get started right away, Candis- er, Candy” I replied.  I was Alice, the Brave Warrior Princess, captured by the Harpy Queen.  She has forced me to toil in her dungeon doing tedious manual labor.  I have no choice to comply, for she has threatened to stop gold from reaching my kingdom.  However, there is something she doesn’t know.  My loyal camel soldiers (mullet still there), Uni the Unicorn and sassy Invisible Tulip are on their way to save me from this wretched existence…promptly at 5:00 pm today.

This is the story of the return of my imagination.  May yours be found as well.

THE END?