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Mongolian horde seekers have arrived here in large numbers today.  Great forces are obviously at work somewhere in the world.

But I fear your journey has been in vain.  A lemming crusade.  Here we wait patiently for Thor.  Here we fear no Khans.

They say that Thor will soon appear on the horizon and that the sun reflecting off of his helmet will be blinding.  They also say that the Khan brothers, having put down their weapons, will arrive only minutes ahead of Thor, and that they will have tiny, digital camcorders in their large, grimy, bloodstained hands so that they can capture the whole moment on film.

But then they say a lot of things.

Imaginary Keith is tied in a chair being force fed numbers.  One hand is loose, barely, so that he can sketch a concept for an arbor and gate.  Every five minutes I walk over and flick him on the back of the ear, then remind him that he’s had more then two months to get this done.  It’s his own fault.  His own doing.

I took out the gag once, but immediately put it back in when he began to compare me to a visit to the dentist.

Do you see the abuse I have to put up with?

Finish the damn sketch, I tell him.  I’m waiting, a customer is waiting, and even worse, Thor is waiting.

Thor!  Did you hear me?  Thor!  Finish your work before you really piss him off.

Imaginary Keith’s hand wiggled around when I said that, but I’m not sure if he was reaching for the pen or just twitching as I tightened the ropes.  His eyes look a little jumpy, but then he’s such a coffee freak.

If Imaginary Keith ever becomes historically significant, there are going to be certain questions that will pop up.  People will demand answers, because people, let’s admit it, are funny that way.  They want to know things that matter very little.

Like Spalding Gray.  Imaginary Keith sees people talking all about Spalding Gray, but realizes that he knows nothing about this man.  But he knows that he wrote and was in some movies and went floating in a river.

Maybe people will ask: Hey!  Imaginary Keith!  What about Spalding Gray?  And Imaginary Keith will turn and look faraway and dreamy, like he’s thinking of something that happened long ago, maybe something that he hadn’t thought about in a long time, and just now has resurfaced in his memory because of the curiosity of the people.  Imaginary Keith’s head may move slightly, up and down, just like curious people’s heads move when they too remember something from long ago.  And Imaginary Keith will stand there silently looking back at the curious people, giving them enough time for their own thoughts to drift a bit.  It will be a long enough silence that the curious people will begin to grow just a little bit uncomfortable.

Curious people, you might know, are uncomfortable with silence.

And then, finally, Imaginary Keith will say something.  Something like, “I just don’t know what happened to Spalding Gray.”

And because of the faraway look, and the dreamy eyes, and the slightly nodding head and the almost too long uncomfortable silence, the curious people will decide that Imaginary Keith has thought long and hard about the life and death of Spalding Gray.  They will think that there is great mystery here.  They will think that Imaginary Keith has clung to the hope that Spalding Gray will somehow survive floating in a river for two months.  That somehow he will turn up alive and well and kicking.  They will think so many things.  Their imaginations will run wild in that moment of silence as they try to fill something that is so unbearably uncomfortable.

So Imaginary Keith will answer the curious people’s questions by saying nothing.  Inside he will smile, thinking it is odd that silence can be mistaken so easily for reflection and knowledge.

And people, because they’re funny this way, will answer all of their own questions.  They will talk and talk and talk until they are sure they’ve said enough, making everything up as they go along.

The metronome in Imaginary Keith’s brain functions poorly.  Yesterday I found myself poking my friend with a rather large stick, hoping that the physical discomfort might even the beat of his thoughts somewhat.  I wish that I could report this morning that rhythm had been restored, but it would be a bold, outright lie.  And I seem to remember something about wishing for less of those things in my life.

When poking didn’t work, I tried listening in Imaginary Keith’s ear, seeing if I could hear the unfortunate beat that was dictating his day.  Or should I say days?  Or should I say years?  I don’t know.  But whatever it is, I found myself ear to ear with Imaginary Keith this morning, listening for some sort of clue.  Anything that might explain this lump of man lying around the house.

I have to do something.  He’s too thick to make a decent rug, but not quite large enough to become a beanbag chair.  I could feed him more, plump him up, but then I remembered that beanbag chairs never were that comfortable to begin with.  All the work of plumping would be wasted when next summer I rolled him out onto the front lawn for a yard sale and sold him for a buck.

So I smashed my ear to his and listened really close.  It was early and the house was quiet.  No washing machine, no computer whirring, no phone or dishwasher, and no sound yet upstairs from the neighbors, getting ready for work.

Ear to ear, I could hear nothing except that low hiss of air that you hear when you listen to a seashell.  That low hollow sound that everyone pretends to believe is the sound of the ocean, somehow trapped forever inside the swirls of a thin, little shell. 

Could this be the case with my friend?  Could Imaginary Keith somehow have an entire ocean trapped in his head?  It was hard to believe, even for me.  Wouldn’t some of the water have to get out?  Wouldn’t I catch him crying once in awhile, letting some of that pressure out?  And wouldn’t he be salty with so much ocean trapped inside?  With an ocean raging around in his head, wouldn’t I see signs of it on the outside, like maybe salt deposits built up around his cheeks or something where battles were fought and won against the strength of a high tide?

But I saw nothing like that, nothing that would convince me that the ocean sloshed around inside of my friend’s big round head.

I will listen closely today and let you know if I hear anything.  I have managed to slip the big lug into a pair of jeans and work boots, push him out the door and into the work van.  At first it seemed a little irresponsible, letting him drive, but then no one around this city pays much attention to driving.  I showed him how to bonk his head against the steering wheel, in case he needs to use the horn, and how to use a cinder block to hold down the gas, in case his foot grows too weak to push the pedals.  I didn’t bother telling him about the turn signal, but I did point out the gear shift lever.

Put it in D, I told him.  D means direction (I think).  And everyone needs direction.

So I pulled the lever into D and dropped the cinder block onto the gas pedal.

I think Imaginary Keith will be just fine.