This morning I broke the news to Imaginary Keith about his acid trip twenty years ago, which of course, neither of us knew about until last Sunday. He took it better then I thought he would, although he insists that from this day on we refer to my brother only as Little Timmy. I’m not so sure archaic references to dead guys is the way to go, but wants the point in arguing?
“This does bring up an interesting point,” Imaginary Keith says.
“What’s that?”
“Well, I have to wonder about the nature of addiction. All addictions.”
“What do you mean?” Is it possible for an imaginary friend to discuss addiction? Somehow, this doesn’t make sense to me, but once again, what’s the point in arguing.”
“Let’s take coffee, for instance.”
“Okay, what about it?”
“There’s no denying the addictive qualities of caffeine, so for argument’s sake, let’s say you know nothing about coffee and caffeine. And then let’s say that somehow, it is possible to give you several cups of coffee each morning without you knowing about it.”
“Sounds like my first cup in the morning,” I say.
“Yea, kind of like that, except here you know nothing about the coffee you’re drinking. You’re sleeping or something, and someone’s pouring it down your throat, let’s say, before you wake up.”
“There’s someone who’d do that for me? Sounds nice.”
“Be quiet and listen,” Imaginary Keith says. “Anyway, you don’t know you’re drinking coffee and becoming physically addicted to the caffeine, so my question is this - how does your mind know what to seek during the waking hours, when your body has become addicted to something, and the mind, because it was asleep while the addiction occurred, has no idea of what has happened? Can the body even become addicted without the mind’s cooperation? Could this be the key to unlocking addiction?”
“That sounds just like the desire to buy a new car.”
“What? Are you even listening?”
“Wait, that sounds just like love.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No, I take that back. It sounds just like watching reruns of Mannix.” I know this isn’t true, but say it anyway, just to irritate Imaginary Keith.
“Will you shut up? I’m being serious.”
“That’s it! It’s just like an imaginary person being serious.”
“I said shut up. Don’t you dare try making this about me.”
“No, listen. Let’s say someone slips an imaginary being into my consciousness without me knowing about it, and continues to do so day after day until one day, I just start to expect this imaginary being to be there, even though I “know” nothing about it. Just like the caffeine in your example.”
“You’re trying to make this about me, aren’t you?”
“No, no. This is some other imaginary being.”
“It is?”
“Sure. I wouldn’t compare you to caffeine.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course not. Caffeine is much more stimu--”
“I get the point. Do you remember yours?”
“Well okay. So then my question would be - how does the body, with it’s mind now addicted to this imaginary being, know what to go looking for in the world? The body feels this inner need, but doesn’t know what it is. It doesn’t know it’s been force fed an imaginary being. What does it do?”
“That’s just stupid. I was trying to talk science and you’re just making things up. Besides, you can’t force feed someone imaginary things.”
“Ummm… television.”
“Besides that.”
“Religion.”
“And that one.”
“How about, smashed peas to a baby.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Imaginary Keith? What do you think televisions would talk about, if they could talk to each other?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Politics, I suppose.”
“And sex?”
“Sure. Politics and sex, with a few jokes thrown in, here and there.”
“Kind of sou--”
“I know. Shhhh. I think it’s listening.”