Julie Stokes is a typical human being. She is also the main character in a short story, but that's not important right now.


Julie Stokes is no ordinary typical human being. Undeniably, she is not a human being at all. She is a product of an imagination of another human being, who is undoubtedly real. The human being who created her has many flaws, most notably that she is a writer. A bad writer, mostly for using the word "bad" instead of a more interesting and imagery-filled word such as "abominable" or "deficient," but a writer nevertheless. Julie Stokes came out of that writer, like you did from your mother's womb. Julie Stokes did not exit through a womb, though, but through a mind, or an imagination, if you will. The writer both fathered and mothered Julie Stokes, and knows everything about her, from her favorite color to the reason why she despises bananas.


Julie Stokes is not a real person. Her name was selected by random from a book of Broadway's top musical legends from 1900 to today, rising from Julie Andrews and Brian Stokes Mitchell, and her personality and life events were all thrown together by the writer, who is ready to tell you. Julie Stokes' strong ideals, her sense of humor, her teeth-grinding and her ability to knit are all just ideas from a young writer's mind, and are only real to three demographics: Julie Stokes, the writer, and the readers.


Julie Stokes knows she is real; that is only logical. The writer knows Julie Stokes is real, because she has created Julie Stokes and her story, and therefore made her real. The readers know Julie Stokes is real because you are reading about her, and can picture her in your head. (You may get it wrong, but you can still try. For example, if you have been picturing Julie Stokes as anything but an average height eighteen year old girl with frizzy orange hair and freckles on her arms and legs but not her face, you are wrong.) You can see who she is and form your own ideas and opinions about her. The others, the ones who aren’t reading her story, do not know about her existence, and could probably care less.


The only one of us who does not know that she isn't really real is Julie Stokes, because in her mind, she is as real as she could possibly be, but I know this isn't the case because I just wrote that she knew that without her telling me she did, because she isn't real.


Julie Stokes has a wonderful tale, filled with laughter, mystery, tears, acceptance, and joy. The story of her Senior year in the new town of Lansbury, Indiana (after Angela Lansbury, of course), and the watershed event that occurred that Christmas Eve is so dreadful and heartbreaking, why - -


- why should I tell you? Why should I tell you what happens to Julie Stokes? How much could I tell you about Julie Stokes without hurting her feelings? Granted, she's not real, but if I weren't real I wouldn't want someone telling the world about my life and my deepest secrets! Why should I tell her about her knitting goals or her questioning of God's existence or her feelings for Richard Lupone or her love of apples? Why, if I told you a different story, you wouldn't know the difference. If I told you she knitted a scarf that was two thousand feet long and that she could fly and that she had a pet lion named Nathan who knew the Greek alphabet, why, you'd believe me. I shouldn't tell you about Julie Stokes, and I won't. She is not just a character - she is a symbol, and her story shall only be known to me. It could only be safe with the writer. I shall have to lock her away in my imagination, returning Julie Stokes to an idea rather than an story. Away from the readers and critics who might not read, might not like, might not understand Julie Stokes, her stories, her anecdotes, her existence and why she is important. I shall keep her to myself.

Please, refrain from remembering Julie Stokes. Thank you.