A Meditation on Imaginary Friends

It's been so long since I heard her voice--years, in fact.
But now... I think I can, just a little, a faint sighing borne to me on a whispy breeze.
Her voice is so very faint, and the only one I can hear... for now.
Yet, I take heart--at least I can hear something. All is not that awful silence that it was...
The music is coming back... I can feel it in my bones, even if I cannot quite hear it yet.
Hearing is still difficult though, and exhausting at times.
Seeing though, that's a different matter.

She is hidden from me, from everyone who could find her. Shape-shifters can be difficult to find, and she has taken the form of a small black cat with brilliant green eyes. Her eyes is the only thing about her that she cannot completely change in her efforts to flee herself. The golden locks that reminded me of sunshine, the voice filled with laughter that always broke into song, the smile that gave fearless reassurance--all that is gone. But those eyes, green as emeralds, deep with sorrow and pain, they are as they have always been.

There is comfort in knowing some things never change--even if the unchangeable is pain.

The black cat wanders aimlessly, forgetting all that she once was. She remembers no more the battles fought and won, the friends now departed, the lover lost, the quest neglected, even her own name eludes her memory. She truly has given herself up to being no more than a feline. Hunting rodents, evading stones thrown by children, enjoying the occasional scratch behind the ears, and always always roving on--these are the only half-formed "thoughts" that fill her foggy mind now.

Yet, discouraged and silent though she is, she is.
This in itself is a wonder.