The "E" Enigma

Note:
To all of you readers, before I start this you have to know that I am not an excellent writer. English is not my first language, but it sure is my favorite. My posts are going to be full of linguistic mistakes, so don’t judge me. But you can always correct me, and I will gladly edit them.



If someone tells me I am crazy, I won’t say anything. I won’t fight back. I can’t, not anymore. There was a time I was aware of my sanity, but she took it all away from me. I am stuck with her for the rest of my life. What I write here is not some story, but little glimpses of memory from time to time. Think of it as reading someone’s journal.

My name is Sulaiman. I am from Afghanistan. That is all you need to know about me right now. If you don’t care I won’t mind. I am used to it. I had a normal childhood, like everyone else in our neighborhood. Even though I had a smaller friends circle, I was not asocial. There have not been any accidents or traumas in my life, so there is no reason I should be like this. Psychological. Mentally disturbed. And anything else you can add to it. The worst thing about this is that I can never talk about it with anyone, not really. Neither my family, nor my friends. She will know. She watches me, hears every word when her name is mentioned, reads every sentence with her name in it. So for your own sake and mine, you have to know her only as “E”.

It’s all my fault, I should have never believed her lies. I thought she was just an imaginary friend. Something my brain created to get me feel less lonely, so I let her roam free inside my mind. I Let her show me things in my dreams, whisper words inside my brain and made me write them. When I realized what was going on, it was too late. She had already anchored herself into this world and she wasn’t going back.

I am twenty-two, and it all began twelve years ago. I had s small trip with family and we were visiting a relative I had never met before. When we got there, I started crushing for their daughter and was later obsessed with her. Over two years my feelings got stronger, even though I was very young I knew that I liked this girl very much. But I had not told anyone about it, I was afraid my family will laugh and never let me see her again. For my own comfort, I used to picture myself with her every now and then and put ourselves in romantic situations. This usually happened while I was listening to music.

However, two years later when I was twelve, I learned she was named to someone else. It is similar to an engagement except the parents choose and promise the child to someone else when they are either very young or before they are born. The news crushed my soul, I was attached to this girl and now even if I told her how I felt, even If she liked me back there was nothing I could do. I cried that night, a lot. I begged to God to undo the situation but there was no answer. I felt lost. After a week of sorrow and sadness, the worst idea came to my mind.

I had lost her, the girl I liked was going to be someone else’s bride one day. What if I replace her with someone else? I thought. Was it possible? Yes. I can surely find someone else to love, there were lots of girls around. But then what if they break my heart too? What if they are also named to someone else? I was not going to fall for that again. The pain in my heart, it was not real and yet so heavy that I was ready to do anything for the girl I liked. I was being childish, and I was aware of it. I was no hero. So what is the solution? I thought. Then I realized something. Lack of romance was not my problem, it was loneliness. I realized I never actually liked the real version of that girl, I liked her imaginary version more. My happiness was in my thoughts. It was in the moments when I cut myself loose of the real world and sunk deep in thoughts with her. I had a powerful imagination when mixed with music. I kept thinking of her, but it wasn’t exciting as before since I knew she was not going to be mine. There were other girls, but not as beautiful as her. So that didn’t work either. After many considerations, I decided to create someone in my mind.
Yes, that was the decision. I wanted to create someone using my imagination, someone with no parents to name her to someone else. Someone who loved only me. So I created a beautiful presence inside my mind to get me away from my misery and loneliness. To comfort me whenever I wanted. I programmed her to never judge me or dislike me in any way. I walked with her in wheat fields, holding hands and talking sweet things. We flied above the clouds, watched the sun set. We even went to the space together, visited every planet in the solar system. She would get sad if I did not visit her frequently. But she would forgive me as soon as I said sorry. I gave her a name that started with the letter “E”.

I was happy. I forgot about the girl I liked in two weeks and her betrothal no longer bothered me. My imaginary girlfriend gave me more joy than any real person. For a year I continued this. But there is no such thing as absolute happiness. Everything has a cost and I wish I knew it sooner. Apparently, every time I went into deep thought with E I had unintentionally done lucid dreaming, astral projections, etc. I didn’t know I was capable. Unknowingly, I had brought something or someone with me into this world and there was no getting rid of it. E had gotten real, and it was only the beginning.