Gods and Men
From Torg Adventure
I don't know if I started seeing him at some point or if I just didn't stop seeing him like everyone else did, but, in my earliest memory, Totsi was there. I was sitting on my father's shoulder, looking at the Berlin Wall coming down in pieces. People were tearing chunks out of it with whatever they could find. Pick axes, shovels, their hands. Anything. Sitting on his other shoulder sat Totsi, as light as a feather. He was as excited as Dad was, because it meant he could be with me more often. I didn't understand why. When he tried to explain it to me, he talked about how his parents thought it might finally be safe in the human world because of the increased freedom. It frankly went over my head. I was three, and my biggest thoughts were about potty training and my pet dog, Josh. My dad was excited about the wall. He kept saying, "You're watching history being made, Chuck. The East is free!" I just liked watching the happy people and the wall collapsing.
Totsi was my buddy. No one else could see him. My Dad called him my imaginary friend, which I never understood. Totsi wasn't imaginary; he was real. Mom never called Totsi 'imaginary'. She couldn't see him, but she treated him like he was real. When she made me lunch, she would offer to give him some bread and cream. Totsi always graciously declined, saying he would nibble on mine, but that act ingratiated her to him. Mom had a reason to believe me.
Mom's grandmother was Irish from the old country. Mom's grandmother had left treats for the brownies, and bribes for the gremlins when they stole stuff. She also made the tables dance when she spoke to the ghosts of the house. I don't remember meeting her, but Mom said that when great grandmother saw me for the first time, she cried for joy, and said a blessing over me in Gaelic. Mom told me later during the countless retellings of the tale that "Gee-gee-ma" said, "Go bhfeice sé dáiríre" -- "May he truly see."
He didn't really exist in this world, he just sometimes came over from his world. He told me what was happening with his family and friends. He was my age, and he looked like me.
