Rebecca McNutt

Friends are like the stars that glow in the sky... you don't always see them, but you know they're always there overhead, and even when it's cloudy, snowy or stormy, even when the power goes out and you're trapped in darkness, they'll always find a way to shine through to you.

Newspapers take peoples_ tragedies and force the world to experience all of it.

The worst feeling in the world is not losing your friend forever, but rather having patronizing people tell you that the love you have for your friend and the connection and emotion you have towards them is an illness to be cured, a problem to be covered up and hidden away by the power of mood-altering drugs. I used to trust doctors when I was younger... now I've lost my trust in all mental health professionals forever.

A picture's worth a thousand words. But a single word can make you think of over a thousand pictures in your mind, over a thousand moments, a thousand memories.

Everything has a past, a voice, existed at some point, even things as small and seemingly meaningless as a house in a huge suburb. It__ a house like every other house_ but at some point a family lived there, made it theirs, made it important. When people forget that history, that somebody at some point thought the house mattered, it just becomes an empty pile of nailed wood and brick and concrete that gets torn down for some strip mall or chain store to take its place_ and that__ what happens more and more now, everything is disposable, always replaced with no thought at all. That__ where things get lost, memories get lost, humanity slips through the cracks, because when we all fail to pay attention to the things that make up our lives, we__e no longer human at all, not really.

They think I__ not entirely __rounded in reality_, they say. They want me to go to some live-in nerdy activity ranch thing for troubled Canadian youth, that one out in Ontario where you come back programmed like some robot, dressed in a tye-dyed shirt and eating tuna sandwiches,_ Mandy explained, a horrified look on her face. __ou__e eighteen, not twelve! Would they really send you to some rat__ nest like that?_ Wendy questioned in mock horror. __w hell no, if you get sent there, they__l make you hold hands and sing songs about caring! And they__l force you to recycle everything in blue canisters, and to discuss your emotions in front of groups of bratty little dopes!___ear god, they__l have geeky youth wiener roasts at night, and no locks on the doors!_ Mandy added, eyes wide. __It__l be the day pigs fly, my parents have the camp brochure on the fridge but they__l never go through with sending me there. They always forget.

People say that a time machine can__ be invented, but they__e already invented a device that can stop time, cameras are the world__ first time machines.

Mandy was thinking back to when she was five years old, when she, her parents and Jud went outside before Christmas and had a snowball fight with the gray snow of Sydney Mines. __his is a wicked blast,_ Jud would say, and Mandy would snap photos with a 35mm disposable film camera, photos she wished very much she could step into sometimes.

Amanda, you finally decided to answer the phone,_ her mom exclaimed after picking up at the first ring. __here__e you been, what__e you been up to?___om, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, he was a Personification of the Sydney Tar Ponds, sort of my imaginary friend?_ Mandy asked.__o, what in the name of god are you on about?_ her mom sighed in exasperation.__emember? Only I could see him, but he was real and he was my best friend when I was eighteen?_ Mandy insisted.__o, I don't remember Alecto Sydney Steele at all,_ said her mom all too quickly.

Some of the most evil human beings in the world are psychiatrists. Not all psychiatrists. Some psychiatrists are selfless, caring people who really want to help. But the sad truth is that in today's society, mental health isn't a science. It's an industry. Ritalin, Zoloft, Prozac, Lexapro, Resperidone, happy pills that are supposed to "normalize" the behavior of our families, our colleagues, our friends - tell me that doesn't sound the least bit creepy! Mental health is subjective. To us, a little girl talking to her pretend friends instead of other children might just be harmless playing around. To a psychiatrist, it's a financial opportunity. Automatically, the kid could be swept up in a sea of labels. "not talking to other kids? Okay, she's asocial!" or "imaginary friends? Bingo, she has schizophrenia!" I'm not saying in any way that schizophrenia and social disorders aren't real. But the alarming number of people, especially children, who seem to have these "illnesses" and need to be medicated or locked up... it's horrifying. The psychiatrists get their prestigious reputation and their money to burn. The drug companies get fast cash and a chance to claim that they've discovered a wonder-drug, capable of "curing" anyone who might be a burden on society... that's what it's all about. It's not about really talking to these troubled people and finding out what they need. It's about giving them a pill that fits a pattern, a weapon to normalize people who might make society uncomfortable. The psychiatrists get their weapon. Today's generations get cheated out of their childhoods. The mental health industry takes the world's most vulnerable people and messes with their heads, giving them controlled substances just because they don't fit the normal puzzle. And sadly, it's more or less going to get worse in this rapidly advancing century.

Your imaginary friend isn__ the problem, Amanda. The problem is that you don__ seem to have any real friends.

Some people spend their whole lives in a fantasy world, and that__ not a good thing!

Mandy, I hardly think this was appropriate, not after_ you know_ after the funeral we haven__ had the money for any of your weird little games and I was hoping you__ be more mature now that Jud__ gone,_ her father had disappointedly added. __ow much__ that cake cost you?___t__ paid for,_ Mandy had argued, but her voice had sounded tiny in the harbour wind. __ used the cash from my summer job at Frenchy__ last year and I_ it was my birthday, dad!___ou can__ even be normal about this one thing, can you?_ her father had complained.Mandy hadn__ cried, she__ only stared back knowingly, her voice shaky. __I__ normal.

Capitalism has a way of letting people view the world through rose-coloured glasses.

Money isn't everything. It's the only thing.

Her latest client is Professor Desmond Curnin, a university professor who teaches library sciences to large groups of students. He__ quick to pay on-time, quick to never fall behind. He__ a brown-haired man with an unkempt beard and thick-framed hipster glasses. He slides a leather briefcase stuffed with dollar bills into the open window of Geraldine__ car. __our fly__ unzipped,_ Geraldine points out, disgusted. __ho gave you a license to sell hot dogs, buddy?

She shakily rushed towards the car to find Alecto casually standing beside it, smoking a cigarette and staring fixedly on the radio as it played the song 'Draggin_ the Line' by Tommy James, his expression thoughtful. __hat are you thinking about?_ Mandy questioned.__ouldn__ the world be a very loud place to live if we said everything we thought?_ Alecto asked quietly.

7 Up soda pop mixed with bright pink grenadine with a chemical-tasting maraschino cherry stuck to the plastic straw. It was one of those drinks marketed for children, but Mandy could see that she wasn__ the only adult ordering one. For some reason or other these old-fashioned restaurants always seemed to attract old ladies ordering strawberry Jell-O with whipped cream, truck drivers ordering __orms and dirt_ (chocolate pudding with Oreo cookies squished over the top in a glass bowl, fruit-flavoured gummy worms over the cookie crumbs) and businessmen trying not to get syrup from their hot fudge sundaes on their neckties and tailored suits. Mandy figured that maybe they were all trying to grasp a time way back in the past when they were all little children, excitedly ordering desert for a special occasion under the warm incandescent light from above, cheerful and bouncing music filling their minds. Hurriedly she ate the food, paid the tab and hurried back to her car in the bitter wind, not wanting to stick around for very long.