When I was seven, my imaginary friend tried to kill me. No one has ever believed me, though. It was always marked up as twisted make-believe and left at that, which bothered me to no end. I was scared out of my mind, looking for some reassurance and safety, and everyone behaved as if I were the problem. My parents, my teachers—all of them. My supposed imaginary friend, a looming Navajo Indian named Malia, was never nice to me. And I say ‘supposed,’ because as far as I’m concerned, I never imagined him at all. He just showed up in my bedroom one night as my parents were tucking me in. I pointed to him and asked my folks who he was, but they laughed it off as a childhood frivolity. I didn’t sleep that night and neither did my visitor. From that point on, he was with me a good eight hours a day, four to five days a week [...]
