I am Pound.

This is the name you gave me.

Right?

Do you remember?

Do you?

~~~~~~

My first moment of joy was when you called my name.

You were bored, I recall, and staring at the plate of disgusting porridge in front of you, you decided you needed a friend. You were much too small to go out and make friends, I remember.

So, taking up a plastic teacup, you set a chair next to you by the table. I was a blob of fuzziness, rapidly taking on a certain shape in the dark recesses of your head, watching your every action through the windows of your soul.

Legs still weakly formed, I was brought out to the real world. I sniffed the fresh air - it was filled with the scent of some sort of baby powder and milk formula. I liked it. It smelled of you.

I propped my aching legs up on the table and you swatted my feet. To anyone else, it seemed like you were just flicking at a fly, but you and I knew what exactly was going on. "Put them down," you scolded in a tiny, timid voice, testing out the soul you brought forth. But then a smile appeared on your face. "We are going to have so much fun, Pound."

I beamed - it seemed like I was your main source of happiness. I liked being your friend.

~~~~~~

You made more friends - Penny, Shilling, and Farthing. All the first words you heard from your mother and father as they bustled about the house, talking about figures and business topics you were too young to understand.

I was the oldest. You told me to take care of my brothers and sisters, and I did so. We were a happy family, you and us.

Penny was the smallest. She was tiny, but she could dance well. She'd run about and twirl gracefully with you, her carefully-tied plaits swinging around like little helicopter blades. Penny also liked jam buns. She would get the sugary syrup all over her face whenever she bit into one, and grin widely. She was a little imp, but a sweet one.

Shilling was the older brother who helped put all the mischievous ideas and thoughts into action. He loved getting into puddles and splash all around you in the rain, getting mud all over the both of you. He was also your partner in crime - running all around in muddy footprints and earning screams from the old housemaid who had worked so hard to keep the floor sparkling.

And Farthing - Farthing was a sickly child. You liked to nurse him in your doll cot, soothing him with cool ice bags and delicious herbal soup. Well, it was mostly chicken soup, but that always seemed to do the trick. He'd jump back on his feet, happy and well again, every time you took him under your care.

I was Pound, the sister who assisted you in your jobs; I'd clean up the jam on your lips (and Penny's), wiped up your feet whenever you got muddy (and when Shilling did too), pat you (and Farthing) gently on your back whenever you had a harsh cough.

We all loved you dearly, and you loved us back, smothering us in kisses and soothing lullabies.

We had quarrels as well, squabbling over the smallest thing - about who got the last donut, how much tea we'd all get, who would sleep in the hammock with you and who could sleep on the floor. You'd come up to us and pinch our cheeks. Painful it was, but to me it was an act of affection.

"No more arguing!" you would scold, and we'd run from you, back to the tea table where we belonged, waiting for our punishment.

You never gave it to us, though. Rather, you would laugh at us, calling the four of us "funny friends". We nodded at this term. It suited us.

We really loved you.

~~~~~~



We were elated when you decided to introduce us to your friends.

You were six, old enough to go to school, and you were excited to get to the building you called a "school". There were many people there - adults who seemed lovely and nice, children around your age bustling about. It was crowded, so we had to squeeze through tight corners and narrow spaces in order to get to our destination.

When the class started, we watched as the lovely lady in front of the room told everyone to introduce yourselves. You turned to us and whispered, "When it's our turn, let's tell everyone about our adventures!"

We agreed, of course. The more friends we made from there, the better!

Many of the children who went up were shy, unwilling to expose themselves to the others in the same room as them, but when it was our turn you bounded up with all the energy you could muster and beamed at everyone. The teacher - the lady standing beside us - smiled at you. Did she not see us waving, too?

"My name is Rachel," you said. The other people sitting on the colourful mat chorused a slightly monotone "hello, Rachel".

It was a bit disappointing, all right, but you didn't falter. Instead, you beckoned for us to join her at the front and pointed to us with a huge smile on your face. How proud you were of us!

"This is Pound, and this is Penny, Shilling, and Farthing," you giggled. Everyone else stared at the space beside you, but did not have any reaction.

"Where are they?" one asked, raising his hand and pointing beside you. "I don't see anything."

The others around you murmured in agreement, and we heard words of disgust and shame and mockery. We glanced at you. You looked devastated. Your eyes didn't have their shine anymore.

The teacher looked appalled, too. "Rachel, is it possible that you are just imagining things?" she asked. You shook your head. We did too. We were real, weren't we?

"We don't see anyone, though. I suppose you may have imaginary friends, but they are not real, and you must remember to make real friends around here, okay?" she said and waved to the other students.

They laughed. You cried.

Since then, you've never let us come with you to school any more.

~~~~~~

The day Penny disappeared was the day you discovered you didn't like dancing any more.

"I don't want to dance anymore!" you screamed when the doctor applied the pungent ointment on your poor, snapped foot and bandaged it up. On that day, the shard of hatred had been embedded in your young passion for dancing and, as though it were an eraser, rubbed it all out.

While you were recovering, Penny had tried to convince you that it was just a little accident, that injuries happened all the time, that you shouldn't give up so easily. You reluctantly nodded at her words and waited for the foot to heal. Penny had stroked it ever so tenderly, willing it to return to its original, healthy state.

However, what was erased could not be retrieved.

Penny, upon seeing you discard your dancing shoes, was devastated. She had tried to dance in front of you to cheer you up, hoping that this was a little tantrum that would go away afterwards, but you yelled for her to stop.

That you now hated her.

"I'm giving up dancing. It won't bring me a future bright enough for a position of recognition in the society."

"But it's your passion! How could you give up something you like so easily?"

It was obvious you had done a lot of thinking in the process of healing, and we saw that each time we accompanied you to school and watched how everyone talked to you. What they said to you.

Penny cried, her tears dripping onto her clothes. Each droplet erased a bit of her existence, and no matter how much we tried to save her, she disappeared, the tears engulfing her entire body.

She was gone.

~~~~~~

The day Shilling disappeared was the day you were scolded by your parents and forced to read books we didn't know you enjoyed.

"It's time to study for school," you explained to him in a dead voice – one that lacked feeling, lacked the usual smile in it. "I can't play with you, Shilling. I'm sorry."

With that, you turned away from him and waved him away, your nose buried in thick pages of pictures and words to learn to spell and read.

Shilling cried at your words and tried fervently to rekindle the love for puddles, the love for fun, but you didn't even so much as glance at his efforts, turning away from each pool of mud you saw.


"Do you not understand fun anymore?" he asked, clinging to your arm. "Is the need for knowledge that strong?"



"It is for examinations and tests that would bring me higher up in society and to further education to bring me more chances for jobs," you explained. None of us understood what you meant, but you seemed serious. You brushed him away and continued to read.

"Is status in the world that important?"



"Yes."

Then he disappeared.

He was gone.

~~~~~~

Farthing faded away into an abyss of nothingness - the empty space of forgetfulness in your mind.

That was the day you got to school and learnt more about the ways of doctors.

"Being a doctor and taking care of sick people is so hard! I don't like it," you said as you pouted. "Too much work! I don't like it."

Farthing, coughing and sneezing, tried to make you remember that you didn't mind the work the first time you tried taking care of him. You just wanted to see him healthy again.

But you refused to listen and continued to read the little storybook your teacher pressed in your hands.

Farthing cried, and let the loneliness pull him into the dark, deep hole.

He was gone.

~~~~~~

I struggled to be the only friend you remembered.

But you were getting way too busy to talk to me, to whisper loving words to me, to think about my existence as you listened to the teacher rambling on in the lesson.

I didn't want to be like my siblings, who had disappeared from your memories as time passed, but I knew my time was coming.

So when you stopped speaking my name altogether, all I could hear was the sound of my own tears slamming against the echoing, empty walls of your imagination.

~~~~~~

You were twenty, working in a decent store and chatting to friends.

Meanwhile, I, Pound, was scrabbling through the recesses of your mind, to find that light switch to make you somehow remember. Although I knew it would be fruitless, I wanted to give it a shot. You might somehow remember.

I was a fool to think that.

Jumping from your mind, I landed next to you, waving my arms in front of you. I searched for the spark of light in your eyes whenever you saw one of us, begging silently for you to remember. After all, they were your first friends.

But it was fruitless. Your friends, my siblings - they could not budge from their non-existence. After all, real friends replaced us. We were just a substitute for whatever was about to come about in the future - the time after your innocent, happy childhood.

So I slumped down against the wall and waited for my entire being to disappear, for my body was already starting to fade off.

Then your inner voice spoke, telling me something that I would always remember, even if you didn't. Even if I was sitting in the space of non-existence and couldn't see you any more.

"Pound? Oh, she was my imaginary friend. I loved her a lot."

That was the only thing I needed to hear before I left.

My last moment of joy was when you called my name.