Special Issue #13 ISSN 1547-5957

So he sighed and began reading Chandler’s essay.
“My imaginary friend, Octavius, is also my demon. I have to exercise him, keep
him busy, or he gets me in trouble.”
So Chandler knew what he was doing by using “Exercising” in the title.
“Sorry,” he wrote, near where he had red-circled the word ‘Exercising.’ “My
mistake. Clever pun.”
Then he returned to the essay.
Ever since I was a little boy, Octavius would dare me to do things I new
would get me in trouble.” (Douglas circled “new.”)
I would try to be good because I wanted my stepfather to like me, but
Octavius would tell me to jump on the couch, even though my shoes were
dirty. Or he would make me say something nasty. I would try to explain
to my stepfather that Octavius made me do it, but he never understood.
My mother would yell at him and he would accuse her of choosing
me over him. I never wanted to come between them. Even though the
therapist my mother made me go to said I did so subconsciously.
Douglas circled the misspelled word. It broke his concentration, but he was
impressed. This kid was really opening up, he thought.
He tried picturing Chandler in class. Clean-cut and unassuming, Chandler
was one of those students he hardly paid attention to anymore. He seemed neither
bright nor dull. He sat in the back of the room, spoke only when called on, but
usually seemed prepared. His comments, as he recalled, were often correct, but not
particularly insightful. Douglas checked his grade book and saw that Chandler had
a respectable B- average.
He thought of his own sons. He hadn’t seen them since last Thanksgiving,
nearly a year ago, when Sara invited him up to Maine to share the holiday with
them. Ward, the older boy, brought his girlfriend. She seemed pleasant, Douglas
thought. Eddie, younger by two years, appeared uncomfortable around him. He
was a child when Sara remarried and moved to Maine.
It’s hard to be a father when all you have are visitation rights. Again, that was the
way he rationalized the situation.
Douglas didn’t want to think of his own rumpled life, so he returned to the
essay. Chandler wrote more about the problems Octavius caused, but none were
particularly serious. He ended by saying that he learned to keep Octavius controlled
by exercising him. He would take Octavius on long runs or work out with him after
school in the gym. He joined the high school wrestling team and imagined that he
and Octavius combined to defeat their opponents.
Douglas wondered if Chandler had some kind of dual personality disorder—
was this why his mother sent him to a therapist?—but he ended his essay by saying
that he knew Octavius was imaginary and tried to make his demon work for him,
especially in sports.
The essay, itself, sputtered to a mechanical conclusion and ended at three typed
10 The Literary Hatchet