FOUR
     
     I believe it, but at least he looks happy.
     
     
     
     
     By February, I was back at college, and drunk. The 
usual gathering was in my place that evening, and drinks 
were brought as gifts to the denizens of the largest room on 
hall. I knew all the faces. My desire to entertain them 
diminished as my familiarity with them increased, as I 
became more intoxicated with White Russians made with two-
percent milk. My roommate was not being especially 
entertaining, talking to his hometown girlfriend for the 
third hour on the Internet.
     Neil Diamond wrote, and UB40 sung, “I’d have sworn 
that with time, thoughts of you would leave my mind. I was 
wrong, and I find, just one-thing makes me forget.” It is 
called “Red, red wine.” I sung that about Megan once or 
twice a hundred times. I was singing it in my head, sitting 
on my bed, watching the “party” take place, when the 
“fateful event” took place.
     MC Neil also sings a song called “Shilo.” People 
tell me it’s about an imaginary friend by that name. I also 
have an imaginary friend. She first came to me during that 
party. She was introduced as Amelia, and from that point on, 
she always came when I called her. 
     People say that talking to imaginary friends, when 
you’re full-grown, is a sign of mental illness. Well, I’d 
better admit here, at this early juncture, that I’m so sick, 
I would later have sex with mine, and a lot. She would be 
good. In fact, we’d come to like each other so much, now I’m 
married to her. I can tell this because she has my last 
name. How did I perform this magic trick? Well, you see, the 
sex, like the last name, was imaginary. But that doesn’t 
decrease the pleasure of it any, since at the time, I was 
imaginary too. So everything worked out in the end. 
     Dig.
     
     At the time, I was drunk enough to think that 
drinking was still improving my situation in life. When 
you’re almost hopeless, you just keep on drinking and 
drugging, night after night, because no matter how many 
times it fails, you’re waiting for that sparkling morning, 
when you wake up and all your problems look as tiny as they 
looked the night before. And you keep doing it, despite 
hangovers and fits of useless logic, because if you didn’t 
keep doing it, you’d finally stop being almost hopeless. 
You’d suddenly be totally hopeless.
     So, when the milk ran out, and the Kahlua wasn’t 
mine, I switched to Vodka Coca-Cola. I thought it tasted 
great. It had bubbles, and bubbles seemed like a 
particularly sensible idea. 
     Yet, when Amelia came in, my massive buzz subsided 
long enough for a bigger bell to ring. She was beautiful, 
with dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin. She wore a “I 
feel like a Giant today” Ho, Ho, Ho, Green Giant, tee 
shirt, a rainbow knit cap on her shoulder-length hair, a 
rainbow knit scarf around her shoulder-height shoulders, an 
unzipped puffy blue parka, and a pair of purple knit 
mittens. She was shapely. The swoop of her hips and the push 
of her breasts showed through all her winter armor. 
     She was there looking for someone who wasn’t there. 
She found someone she was looking for, nonetheless: someone 
who was certainly looking for her.
     “Hello drunk people,” she said. “Is Roger here?”
     “Um… no,” my roommate, Boomer, answered. “We’ve 
got a Richard and a Ray, but no Roger.”
     “Who’s she?” I asked, too loud, pointing with my 
hand-carved magic wand.
     “Amelia,” someone more sober informed us.
     “Dig,” said I, as I often do when something 
profoundly important is at hand.
     “And who’re you?” Amelia asked.
     “That’s Simon,” Boomer told her. “It’s our room.”
     When she looked to me, I smiled, nodded, and pointed 
to my tee shirt with my magic wand. It read: the person 
wearing this tee shirt is a DOCTOR. Lie flat on your back 
and do everything the nice doctor tells you to do. 
     She smiled and nodded in return.
     “Why don’t you come over and sit with me?” I 
asked.
     “Because you’re very, very drunk, Doctor,” she 
said.
     “Well, yes. But for medicinal purposes only,” I 
declared, holding up my cup. It may have been the cleverest 
thing I ever said when I was smashed. That might tell you 
something. 
     “Well, at least you’re not finished drinking yet,” 
she said with a smile.
     “Oh, and why do you say that?”
     “You’re never done until you deny being too 
drunk.”
     I didn’t respond. Someone else said, “He was done 
two hours ago.” 
     “I believe it,” she said, “but at least he looks 
happy.”
     Laughter began to disguise the jokes that caused 
them. The conversation left the reach of my mental capacity. 
Yet I was still stuck on Amelia’s comment. I thought that 
Boomer might have been, too, if he’d heard it. Amelia had 
said the same thing about being drunk that I always said … 
when I was sober.
     Amelia left, in search of Roger.
     I rolled over, and soon fell asleep, thinking about 
her, and lusting after, her.
     Someone drank the rest of my Vodka.
     Such is life. 
     ***
     
J. WILDER KONSCHAK
BURYING AMELIA WAVERLY
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