I`m not crazy.

Or at least I`m not crazy now.

They were real. They were there. They were alive.

The shadows were my only friends. They were the only ones that were real to me.

I was about in six at the time when we moved. The times before we moved were by far the best moments of my entire life. Even though I was so young, the times were still so great; I can remember them like they happened yesterday. I remember playing in the neighborhood with all the kids. We had family barbecues, went on picnics, and played in the nearby woods behind my small rickety house. My life was like the popular sitcom The Wonder Years! If I had only knew we would leave, then I would have cherished those sweet moments, savored them deeply. When we packed up and moved away from The Wonder Year`s life, it all changed for the worse.

I remember the people. So bland. So boring. So stupid. We had moved almost half way across the country to the Midwest. The big empty house we lived was a prison: bare white walls, no windows, and a flat backyard. Every single house in my neighborhood looked the same; they were just prison cells filled with different longings to get out of that god forsaken place. I was living in a imagination-less place. No woods to explore. No picnics to go on. And, certainly no family barbecues.

The kids didn`t take to me much. I was weird; I`ll admit that much. The plain children there couldn`t stand my outrageous ideas of exploring the world. "Born and raised," they would tell me, "Nothing is making me leave, so why would I ever want to go somewhere else?" They told me I was wrong about everything. The teachers even whispered things about my different personality. I mean I was only in the first grade, and I still couldn`t make a real friend!

When I didn`t make any friends, that`s when I started to see them. At first I made them up on purpose; invisible imaginary friends that would keep me company. Instead of playing alone during recess, I would spend the time imagining what my imaginary friends would look like if they were actually real. It passed the time, but after a while my pretend friends started to take shape, started to mimic a real person`s silhouette, started to actually become real.

I couldn`t really see them at the beginning; I would only be able to catch a small glimpse of something. It would be out of the corner of my eye, or on a bad reflection; there would be just a blur in my vision, only to disappear when I blinked. It was always explainable; a glare on the mirror, a trick of light on the window, or even a rippled reflection in the water. As time passed, they became more visual until they were always there. No more mistaken blurs. Shadows appeared; lurking in the darkest of places mostly. I could never see a face or clothing, just a black silhouette of a person.

Then the part that most people thought was weird began to happen. Soft whispers came to me. It could be easily mistaken as the wind slightly stirring up the autumn leaves outside or the light purring of the washing machine downstairs. But, my mind turned the low chants in the dark into words that came clear as day. The voices varied, some high or very low pitched, but they were always children. The shadows would come to me only when there was no one else around. For an odd reason, they would only come individually, perhaps a different one each day, going on some kind of schedule. They weren`t ghosts, for I felt as if I had made them. I was never scared though; the shadows were quite pleasant to talk to. They wouldn`t speak much, only answer me if I said something. So, I explained my troubles, and they understood me. It was rather reassuring. When I told them about the people at school, they agreed to be my friends; my own secret special friends. I accepted them all dearly. They weren`t just in my house. This isn`t some haunted house I was living in, and of course, no one else could ever see them.

When I was alone at school during recess, I would move to a far corner of the school building in the shade, and one shadow would faintly appear, and talk to me. Since I was in a corner, the other kids would think I was either talking to myself or to the brick wall.

People started to notice, and I was teased for it often. It wasn`t just that I was seen talking to the shadows; I began drawing pictures of the shadows in art and writing stories about them. The teachers became worried and notified my parents that I needed counseling. My parents saw the pictures and stories and thought they were just a phase; they thought it was just what children with big imaginations do. I was happy they understood me. So, I continued to play with the shadows. With my parents accepting me, I finally started to feel like I was living again; I felt like my prison was turning into a home.

With such luck, there is always the loss and hurt hidden in the darkness, ready to strike. When I finished the second grade, we had to up and move again. I hoped that we wouldn`t leave because the shadows told me not to. They said-- they begged me not to leave. But, I had to go.

Quite fortunately, we were moving two hours away from our first home, close by to the great life I had once knew. This made me start to look forward to leaving. In my jubilance, I didn`t really realize the shadows fading more and more each day until the day we had all the furniture packed up in cardboard boxes and the house picked clean of all items. That's the day I realized they were gone. They did not come back no matter how much I cried and screamed that I was sorry. No matter how long I refused to leave the dark corner in my room. No matter how much I wanted them to come back. They didn`t return.

And, when we piled into the car and gave the house a final wave goodbye, they did not appear, not even when my chubby, tear stained face was pressed up against the glass of the car window, wishing for them to come back.

I did try to go back to my neighborhood life, but in the two years I had spent away, the families had dispersed and were distant. The old couple Carol and Oscar were deceased. The next door neighbors Dawn and Dave were in a messy divorce, fighting over the custody of their kids. The other families had either moved out or weren`t friendly anymore. So, my once perfect childhood was gone in a pinch. Once seeing the ruins of our once golden past, our family never returned to the neighborhood.

Years after moving away from the shadows, we returned there on vacation just to see if the bland life had changed there. We were doubtful about it, but I insisted we go, for I was curious about my shadow friends.

I remember my mom pulling up to our old prison house in the car. My brother, sister, and my dad had made friends, so they were off visiting other people. I begged my mom to take me to see the house.

My mom stopped the engine and the two of us gazed up at the house dreamily. I peered through the car window watching the house intently. Nothing. There was nothing.

I still persisted on waiting, on making sure I had looked long enough. I looked up at my bedroom window. The room was unlit and dark, just how I had left it. I squinted my eyes, trying to get a better view. Then something did happen. Something did move. Only for a tenth of a second. A slight shadow, only a fraction darker than the room around it, moved passed the window. I nearly gasped at the sight. That small indication meant that they were still there, hidden in the deepest depths of my memories, coming alive with imagination and discovery. Then my mom started up the engine and drove off, leaving my past behind, once again.